Finance union Amicus condemned insurance giant Norwich Union yesterday over its ‘devastating’ decision to offshore 7000 British jobs to India. The massive jobs export comes from a company which has already exported 3700 jobs to India since December and will reduce its British workforce by 25% by 2007. Amicus national officer David Fleming said: ‘Today’s announcement of 950 jobs being offshored is not only devastating to the workforce, but the double whammy is the further 2.350 to go by 2007. In the first stage, 950 jobs will go to India and Sri Lanka next year, hitting workers, their families and communities in Norwich, York and Perth.’ Mr Fleming said that it pointed to a ‘bleak future’ for Britain’s financial services industry.
‘We will not accept compulsory redundancies as a consequence of off shoring in any company and that will be fundamental to our negotiations with Norwich Union. Amicus will take whatever action our members request of us. All our options are open.’
Mr Fleming said that, in talks with the company, the union hopes to ensure maximum opportunities for retraining, job mobility and skills development for all staff affected. Looking across the financial services sector, he added that employees would now be ‘bracing themselves’ for ‘thousands more’ redundancies as companies ‘show their off-shoring hand’.
Defending the announcement, Norwich Union chief Gary Withers insisted that it was a response to ‘customers continually seeking better value for money and quality of service.’ Yesterday’s blow confirmed a recent opinion survey carried out by Amicus among Norwich Union staff in which 99.9% of them feared further job cuts under the company’s off shoring programme. Tens of thousands of British jobs have been moved to India by banks, airlines, telecommunications firms and even national rail enquiries service, chasing wage cuts of up to 40%. But, aside from the devastation caused by the loss of jobs, there is also growing opposition from customers. Lloyds TSB customers backed by the bank’s in-house staff association, are challenging its decision to shift jobs to India under the terms of the Data Protection Act. Amicus has been at the forefront of campaigning to highlight the fundamental problems associated with off shoring – the lack of longterm business benefits and overall benefits to the customer. The union has also urged companies that export jobs to reinvest the cost savings made into developing their British workforce and generating numbers of skilled jobs. However, according to Amicus, not a single company has yet been able to demonstrate a focus on reinvestment and corporate social responsibility.
