Amicus, Britain's largest private sector union, has denounced Norwich Union (NU) plans to offshore 7,000 jobs by 2007 as a brash business decision, which underlines the real threat to the future of the UK financial services industry.
The move comes as part of plans announced by NU today to export 950 jobs to India as part of a plan that will see a 25% reduction in it's total UK workforce by 2007.
The company plans to make 150 compulsory redundancies. NU has already exported 3,700 jobs to India since December last year.
Amicus national officer David Fleming said: "Norwich Union has at last revealed its true intentions, which is to reduce the total UK workforce by 25% by 2007. This points to a bleak future for the UK financial services finance industry as a whole.
"We will not accept compulsory redundancies as a consequence of offshoring in any company and that will be fundamental to our negotiations with Norwich Union.
"We expect the company to ensure there is maximum opportunity for retraining, job mobility and skills development for all staff affected.
"The financial services employees across the UK will be bracing themselves as Amicus expects thousands more redundancies as companies are forced to show their offshoring hand."
