ON the day that Capita has announced its half year results Unite, representing staff at Capita, has said that staff have voted ‘Yes’ in a strike ballot and will be taking part in industrial action. Capita is attempting to close the current defined benefit scheme and transfer staff to a defined contribution scheme.
Staff at Capita have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action in a ballot calling on their employer to give them a decent pension. In the industrial action ballot 95 per cent of members voted for strike action, on a turnout of 72 per cent.
Unite has now informed Capita that Unite members will be taking six continuous days of strike action starting on Thursday 5th October 2017. Unite conducted an industrial action ballot following the proposal to close the current defined benefit scheme. In June Capita informed its employees of significant changes to the pension arrangements. Staff in the scheme will suffer a massive cut in their retirement income as a result of the proposals.
Dominic Hook, Unite national officer, said: ‘The disgraceful plans by Capita to slash the deferred pay that staff will get in retirement is utterly unacceptable. Capita’s pension proposals will have far reaching consequences for the retirement of many Unite members. Some staff will lose a shocking 70 per cent of their retirement income.
‘Capita has once again put the interests of shareholders before those of its staff. Unite members want to know how a highly profitable company such as Capita can undermine the morale and loyalty of hard working staff by proposing to remove their defined benefit pension whilst at the same time paying off a failing chief executive. There is no justification for highly profitable Capita to treat its workforce in this manner. The extremely high vote in favour of strike action shows how strongly members feel about this. Capita must urgently rethink these pensions proposals in order to prevent industrial action.’
The union is calling on the companies which outsource contracts to Capita to intervene to settle this betrayal of staff facing the loss of a significant proportion of their retirement income. At the same time Capita’s former CEO Andy Parker has left early, with a reported pay off of 12 months’ salary for his notice period (£600,000), as well as £45,000 as compensation for pension and other benefits. He could also receive a bonus of double his salary for each day worked in 2017 if approved by the board.
If Capita implements this proposal, then Unite has a real concern that it will open the door to further attacks on the other company pension arrangements. The Capita sites where Unite members are impacted are: Birmingham (two locations); Reading; Bristol; Manchester; Stirling; and Belfast.
