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• Unite members at HP vote for strike action over transfer of customer engineer jobs
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Unite members at HP vote for strike action over transfer of customer engineer jobs

19th November 2009

Unite members at HP have voted overwhelmingly for strike action and action short of strike action in a ballot covering around 150 customer engineers and support specialists at the IT services company throughout the UK.

77 per cent of Unite members voted for strike action and 85 per cent voted for action short of strike action. This follows an earlier overwhelming vote for industrial action amongst the engineers and support specialists as part of a prior consultative ballot.

Unite members have been angered by the company treating them with contempt over a business transfer on 1st November to another HP company (HP CDS) and taking the opportunity of weaknesses in current employment legislation to remove pay and pension benefits, including a performance bonus scheme worth up to £2,000 and a final salary pension scheme.

Unite senior representatives at HP will be meeting next week to decide on the timing and form of strike and other industrial action, in the absence of any attempt by the company to address the underlying pay and conditions issues.

Peter Skyte, Unite national officer for IT and communications, said: “The overwhelming vote for strike action demonstrates the strength and depth of feeling amongst Unite members.

“This is likely to be the first of more industrial action in HP, unless the company rethinks its policy of attacking the terms and conditions of its workforce as a sacrificial offering on the altar of stock exchange driven short term financial targets aimed at primarily enriching its senior executives.

“We remain willing to find a way of resolving this dispute and avoiding industrial action, although this has not been helped by the crass actions of the company in trying to undermine the union and deal with employees individually on a matter that affects this group collectively.”

ENDS

For further information contact Peter Skyte on 07768 931302 or Ashraf Choudhury in the Unite Press Office on 020 7420 8914 or 07980 224761.

Notes to Editors:
HP employs around 18,000 people in the UK.

HP President, chairman and chief executive officer Mark Hurd saw his total 2008 compensation package reach $43 million, an increase of 68 per cent from his $25 million in 2007.

Other members of the HP executive team received substantial increases, including CIO Randy Mott's total compensation up nearly 300 per cent last year to $28 million, imaging executive vice president (EVP) VJ Joshi's total compensation up 81 per cent to $22 million. personal systems EVP Todd Bradley's up 174 per cent to $21 million, technology solutions' EVP Ann Livermore up 31 per cent to $21 million. and CFO Catherine Lesjak up 48 per cent to $6 million.

These same six leaders at the top of HP received $142,774,325 in compensation in 2008, but also sought to impose 10 per cent pay cuts for other executives and 5 per cent cuts for the rest of the HP workforce.