Only days after CSC workers conducted a national lunchtime walkout over plans to impose compulsory redundancies, they have been told that 640 more posts are to go, bringing the total job losses since February up to 1,100.
But the union said that the announcement that a further 640 jobs were to be offshored to India was both unexpected and “devastating”.
Unite national officer, Kevin O’Gallagher, said: “This announcement of a further 640 job cuts has dealt our members a severe body blow and left them absolutely devastated. We have put forward a detailed plan, which will avoid any compulsory redundancies in the company, however these plans have not been taken up and CSC is insistent on issuing compulsory redundancy notices despite receiving sufficient number of volunteer requests to leave the company.”
The union was also "disgusted" that the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) appeared to support CSC’s plans.
“The NOA has taken no consideration of the fact that the union plans to allow for voluntary redundancy rather than compulsory redundancies. It also did not take into account, that from day one of the consultation, CSC has guaranteed that all its workers in India have had their jobs guaranteed regardless of expertise or level of skill," the organisation said.
Unite added that it was determined to avoid compulsory redundancies, which were "clearly unnecessary and, in the main, to enhance the profits of its American shareholders". As a result, it said that it now owed it to its members to "do everything in our power to support them during this very uncertain time and fight these job cuts”.
For its part, CSC said: "This action is necessary because the IT services market is changing, and our customers want competitive, new services with different contract and delivery models. Through voluntary redundancies and redeploying people within other parts of our business, we hope to achieve a significant reduction without the need for compulsory redundancies.
"This action is separate and independent of our NHS consultation programme, which started a number of weeks ago whereby up to 500 employees within our healthcare business may be affected by the consultation programme. Through voluntary redundancies and redeploying people within other parts of our business, we hope to achieve a significant reduction without the need for compulsory redundancies."
Where this was not possible, the vendor promised to provide support to help ensure that anyone leaving the business did so "in the best possible position".
"Our employees will naturally be concerned during this period of uncertainty, which is why we have initiated employee briefings to help them through this difficult situation. CSC remains fully committed to the UK market. We are confident that these carefully targeted and managed reductions will not impact the overall quality of service we provide to our customers," the supplier said.
