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Workers at Fujitsu's British Unit Vote to Strike

Published: Monday, 2 Nov 2009 | 8:41 PM ET

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By: Reuters

Workers at Fujitsu's British unit have voted to strike over plans to cut almost one tenth of the workforce and changes to pay and pensions, the Unite union said on Monday.

Unite, the Britain's largest trade union, said 74 percent of its members at Fujitsu, Japan's biggest IT services firm, had voted to strike, while 92 percent had backed industrial action short of a strike.

A company spokesman at Fujitsu said around 980 employees out of the workforce of 12,500 people were members of Unite and were thought to have taken part in the vote.

The company declined to comment on the outcome of the industrial ballot, but said talks were ongoing with the union and other committees related to pay and pensions.

Union members were meeting on Monday to decide which action to take, Unite said.

"Unite members are asking why they should lose their jobs and tighten their belts when last year the company paid out about 150 million pounds ($245.5 million) to shareholders and around 1.6 million pounds ($2.62 million) to two directors as compensation for loss of office," Peter Skyte, Unite's national officer for IT and communications, said in a statement.

"Fujitsu remains a highly profitable company and our members are insisting that the company must treat them fairly and increase pay, provide decent pensions, and consult meaningfully to minimise job losses and avoid compulsory redundancy."

The Japanese company, which provides IT support and data centres, reported a smaller-than-expected fall in quarterly profit last Wednesday due to cost cuts and stuck to its annual outlook.

Fujitsu, which is chasing bigger rivals IBM Corp [IBM Loading... () ]and Hewlett-Packard[HPQ Loading... () ], kept its forecast for a 90 billion yen ($999.6 million) operating profit for the full year to next March, above the 70.8 billion yen ($786.4 million).

The world's No.4 IT services provider is hurrying to shed non-core operations as the sector goes through a series of shake-ups, including Oracle's [ORCL Loading... () ]<ORCL.O> purchase of Sun Microsystems [JAVA Loading... () ], amid increasing competition.