Strike called off

Two 24-hours strikes by Prudential employees based in Reading, have been suspended, Unite announced today (September 15).

The first of the stoppages was due to start at just past midnight tomorrow (September 16) over proposals to offshore back office annuity work to Mumbai, but was suspended after Prudential bosses gave guarantees that alternative jobs would be found for those affected.

An indefinite work-to-rule, which started on August 31, has also been suspended while further talks over the alternative jobs on offer take place with Unite and the 82 people affected.

“This welcome commitment to find alternative jobs for the people affected by the outsourcing of work to Mumbai has enabled us to call off our industrial action,” said Unite regional officer Ian Methven.

“This development would not have been possible without the resolve and solidarity of Unite members working at Prudential. We will now seek to work constructively with Prudential bosses in hammering out the detail and ensuring the alternative jobs on offer are suitable for those affected.”

The Prudential plan to offshore work, entitled ‘Project Jupiter’, is the moving of individual annuities servicing and bereavement work from Reading to Mumbai. Prudential has about 1.4m annuities customers that would require these services in the life cycle of their products.

The work involved includes: overseas payments, overpayments, bereavements, enquiries, tax, power of attorney, bankruptcy, joint life annuities and guarantee annuities. This work has just started on migrating overseas payments with the last work type guarantee due to be completed by March 2017.