Pru Staff To Vote With Feet

Following the news that Prudential intends to close its call centre in the UK and transfer it to India, news has emerged that staff may strike. Apparently, the Financial Services Union, Amicus-MSF met with Prudential's chief executive but were not reassured about redundancies. As there has not yet been confirmation that no compulsory redundancies will be made, the union has said that if negotiations break down, a ballot for strike action will take place.  Apparently, 850 staff could be made redundant but the union is calling for them to be retrained for other jobs. To add further strain, the union was recently made aware that Prudential's own final salary pension scheme was to be closed to new members. As with many companies in the financial services sector, times are hard and costs have to be cut. More and more companies are opting to transfer call centres to countries with lower pay requirements in an attempt to cut costs. This can be seen at Prudential, especially with the closure of the pension scheme to new members.The union and Prudential will be meeting again soon. Search the archive for other stories on Prudential.