CSC Offshoring Agreement
4 August 2005
GOVERNMENT BACKS AMICUS AND CSC
LANDMARK OFFSHORING DEAL
Amicus has signed an agreement with Computer
Sciences Corporation, a leading global IT services company,
believed to represent a landmark deal on safeguarding the interests
of employees faced with offshoring. Alan Johnson, Secretary of
State for Trade and Industry has backed the deal as a way of
providing safeguards for the workforce in the UK in a globalised
world.
The agreement is believed to be the first of
it's its kind in the IT sector and the first with an American
company anywhere in the world.
It covers CSC's world sourcing capability
that delivers application services to clients from the optimal
combination of on-site, regional, near-shore and off-shore centres
staffed with skilled IT professionals in a variety of locations
worldwide.
It aims to advance and protect the respective
interests of CSC and Amicus in an era of globalisation and ever
increasing competition. For CSC it aims to provide flexibility to
be able to provide customers with equal or improved services at
advantageous prices enhancing competitiveness and delivering
greater value. For Amicus, it aims to safeguard job security and
the skills and careers of its members and the workforce in
general.
Key features of the agreement include:
Full and early consultation with Amicus on
CSC's globalisation strategy and proposals before decisions are
made, with provision of necessary business information
- CSC endeavours to ensure A company commitment
to the principle that its World Sourcing activity in the UK will
not result in the need for compulsory redundancy and where surplus
roles are identified CSC will work with the union to seek
alternative redeployment opportunities to avoid the need for
compulsory redundancy.
- Where necessary as a result of work
relocation, to redeploy people to jobs of at least similar career
value and terms and conditions of employment with the aim of
maintaining careers as well as terms and conditions of
employees
- A share of continuing financial savings to be
invested in skill development of the UK workforce towards the
achievement of a higher place in the skill chain, and regular
career/life reviews, skills assessments and individual plans to
enable employees' ambitions to be realised as much as possible
- The encouragement of high standards of terms
and conditions of employment with third party suppliers and a
commitment in new contracts to follow the company's Code of Ethics
and internationally recognised guidelines from the ILO and UN
Declaration of Human Rights covering employment rights and
conditions
Peter Skyte, Amicus National Officer,
said;
"Globalisation may be an economic
reality, but employers must continue to invest in people, skills
and technology rather than engage in a race to the bottom. This
landmark agreement represents the first in the IT sector and with
an American company anywhere in the world, and we hope other
companies will follow this initiative as a way of both maintaining
their competitiveness and continuing to invest in the jobs, skills
and careers of their UK based employees."
Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Trade
and Industry, said:
"Globalisation is here to stay - the
crucial thing is to ensure that it works for the many and not the
few. And Amicus is showing the way ahead, working in partnership
with CSC to ensure that workers are fully consulted about
off-shoring before it happens and that a share of any savings made
are re-invested in skills for the benefit of the
workforce."
To download a pdf file of the Agreed
Arrangements Relating to World Sourcing click
here.
