More strikes to come at Fujitsu

The UK's largest union, Unite, has announced six more days of strikes by Fujitsu Services staff over redundancies and changes to the company's pension plan.

The new series of one-day strikes will start on Friday. Five of the actions are UK-wide and will take place on 22 and 29 January, and 1, 5 and 8 February, Unite said on Thursday.

Unite members at Fujitsu locations in Northern Ireland will strike for an additional day on 26 January, while members in Scotland, England and Wales will do the same on 27 January. The union is calling the Fujitsu actions the first ever national strike at a British IT company.

The strike actions are in addition to those announced in December, Unite said.

The planned strikes are a response to a Fujitsu plan announced in August to make up to 10 percent of its 12,000 UK staff redundant. The eventual tally of 900 layoffs includes 586 voluntary and 290 compulsory redundances, Fujitsu has said.

Early this month, Unite suggested that Fujitsu may be disproportionately targeting women and minorities for redundancy. The company denied that it had targeted certain groups.

The company also said it would close contributions to its final salary pension scheme and has imposed a pay freeze. The pension changes could affect around 4,000 employees, whose total pay packages could be reduced by around 20 percent as a result, according to Unite.

The union originally called for strike action in November, but this was called off as a result of concessions by Fujitsu.

In December, Unite said talks with Fujitsu had not resulted in an offer that was acceptible to 83 percent of its members at the company, and announced a series of strikes for December and January. Out of all of Fujitsu's UK employees, 1,500 are members of Unite.