Belfast workers join colleagues across UK for first twenty-four hour Fujitsu strike action against offshoring and compulsory redundancies

Workers demand Fujitsu commit to UK workforce, end offshoring and become a fully accredited Living Wage employer

February 28th: Unite the union’s Regional Officer, Sean Smyth, congratulated workers at Fujitsu in Belfast for their participation in UK-wide strike action in response to job-losses caused by management off-shoring and reckless cost cutting.

“Unite members in Fujitsu voted for industrial action and for strike action with majorities of 78.6% and 63.2% respectively. Members have commenced discontinuous strike action starting from midnight today for twenty four hours.

“Workers have also started a continuous refusal to cooperate with, or participate in, projects to move work offshore, including knowledge transfer; a refusal to undertake time recording or forecasting, a ban on working overtime and a continuous work-to-rule and withdrawal of overtime.

“The dispute centres on concerns held by workers about management’s long-term commitment to the UK workforce following recent moves to retrospectively slash pensions and offshore work leading to more than 1,500 redundancies.

“The workers are also raising a broader range of demands including union recognition and for Fujitsu to become a Living Wage employer, to provide improved redundancy pay and to commit to no more compulsory redundancies.

“The response to the strike has been very positive with many of their non-union co-workers refusing to cross the picket lines. Fujitsu must take seriously the expectations of its UK workforce. They are a profitable company – making workers redundant by offshoring work just to make even more profits is totally unjustifiable”, Mr Smyth ended.