Prudential staff have voted to take industrial action following the announcement that the company will be off-shoring skilled jobs to Mumbai.

Of the Unite union members working at Prudential's Reading branch, 75 per cent turned out to vote and 97 per cent voted in favour of not co-operating or undertaking in any work relating to the jobs relocation.

In a plan dubbed 'Project Jupiter', 81 annuities jobs, many full time, will be moved from Reading to India.

As well as today's commitment to boycott the off-shoring work, Unite has proposed an alternative business plan to make cost savings and has urged Prudential to reopen negotiations with the union.

Unite regional officer Ian Methven said: “Unite members have been left with no choice but to take action in order to protect their jobs. The union has challenged the alleged cost savings and the assumptions that are behind the transfer of 81 jobs to India.

 “These proposals make no business sense at all.  The cost savings are questionable and the risk to customer relations is great. There are alternative ways of saving money in this area and we urge Prudential to think again about the offshoring of this skilled work.

 “Unite does not accept that you can only improve efficiencies by moving work to Mumbai and it is impossible to see how losing over 500 years of collective knowledge and experience in Reading won’t have an adverse impact on customer/client relations.   

“The union has presented a counter proposal asking the company to stop the offshoring and to engage constructively with Unite and our members on how the Reading employees can deliver efficiencies, while retaining the knowledge and experience.”

Commenting shortly after the off-shoring announcement was made, a spokesperson from Prudential claimed that a fall in demand for annuity products had led the company to the decision.

The spokesperson said: “As a result of this reduced customer demand and the realignment of our operating model to service this business, we are proposing to make a number of changes within the teams that support annuity administration.

“This has regrettably resulted in around 80 permanent roles being put at risk of redundancy."