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Union in fury over Pru’s 90 job cuts
May 08, 2006
A UNION representative has threatened industrial action at Prudential after the company announced more job cuts which will hit the town.
Chris Gray, who is full-time Amicus representative at the King’s Road firm, insisted the action was inevitable if senior management did not meet them to discuss their concerns.
He added that there was a climate of fear at the Pru following the announcement of 90 job cuts – revealed just days after the company admitted it would be making 700 job cuts and closing offices in Belfast, London and Brighton.
Mr Gray said the latest cuts would come from the company’s human resources department – and that he expected a “significant number” of the redundancies would be spread across Reading’s 60 HR employees.
He added: “The general mood is one of fear – fear of what the merger means in terms of job cuts.
“They probably don’t know the actual location yet, but it’s certainly going to have an impact on jobs in Reading.”
It is understood that the cuts are being made as part of a push to save £40 million in the wake of Prudential UK’s merger with Egg.
Amicus estimates that the Pru is only a third of the way towards its target and Mr Gray said he believed more job cuts would be on the way.
The union is seeking urgent talks with the Pru’s UK chief executive, Nick Prettejohn, and Mr Gray added: “If the senior execs will not meet with us to talk about their plans and at least try to justify what they are doing then industrial action will become inevitable.”
No-one was available at Prudential to comment.
