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Unite: CSC using staffers' profitability to shape the future

Union worried about potential victims at 'basket case' integrator

The Unite union reckons some of CSC’s highest-paid Brit staff could be headed for the chopping block in the company's latest job purge, as it enters consultation with local management.

The beleaguered integrator is bundling 800 workers out of the door to cut costs, with a proportion of those roles to be off- and near-shored, El Chan revealed last weak.

Employees across multiple divisions are at risk of redundancy, including folk in Global Infrastructure Services and Global Business Solutions.

Ian Tonks, Unite national officer for IT, told us there was a change in the criteria CSC applies to determine those that leave – it is introducing a profitability element, he said.

“One of our major problems is that CSC wants to use profitability as part of a matrix which it hadn’t before, that is causing us concern because this is a company that believes in performance-related pay,” Tonks added.

Productivity remains another area the integrator will use to judge the economic viability of its, er, human capital, to ascertain if someone remains on board on not.

Typically, unions fight for the little man and give a voice to the voiceless, but Tonks feared “high earners” may be disproportionately impacted and Unite is trying to figure out how the criteria will be applied.

He said penalising staff over pay scales they had risen to was a “disincentive” for the workforce.

“If CSC is going for people that earn the most – potentially achieved by working the longest, the hardest and ticking all the boxes in previous years’ performance – what does that say to employees?”

CSC is understood to be carving off the North America public sector division as a separately traded company, and is cost-cutting across the wider commercial operation. The cuts come just a year after the company made 750 employees redundant.

Tonks branded CSC a “basket case” and said the redundancies in the recent years since CEO Mike Lawrie took the hot seat were “supposed to make the business fit for the future”.

In the third quarter of fiscal 2015, CSC reported a net loss of $314m compared with a profit of $271m in the same quarter a year earlier, on sales of $2.94bn, down 6.5 per cent year-on-year.

CSC had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

Updated A CSC spokewoman sent us this statement, make of it what you will:

"CSC is looking to optimise its workforce by adapting, remixing, reskilling, recruiting and restructuring. This will involve new development and training initiatives, new talent acquisitions, new career advancements and growth opportunities.

"We are undertaking this transformation to be responsive to market needs and enabling CSC to compete more effectively, capitalize on market opportunities, and lead the industry." ®

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