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back to article Unite workers at Capita ITS vote for strike action

Unionised workers at Capita IT Services have threatened to down tools over plans to offshore service-desk jobs to India and force through compulsory redundancies. The reseller-cum-integrator kicked off a redundancy plan earlier this year placing 1,000 UK staff at risk - although bosses are aiming to reduce headcount by about …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Capita IT are going to stop work

    Will anyone notice?

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  2. vinny1275

    so 25% of 65% of members voted for a strike

    And that's considered enough to threaten one? It's hardly universal support, is it?

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    1. DavCrav
      Reply Icon

      Re: so 25% of 65% of members voted for a strike

      "The union Unite said 65 per cent of members at Capita ITS voted 1-in-4 in favour to strike and 1-in-9 for action short of a strike."

      "so 25% of 65% of members voted for a strike "

      I read it the same way as you, and then thought, why are 25% in favour of a strike and only 11% in favour of short of a strike. Does that mean that 14% want to strike, but not to work to rule? Something weird about this...

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      1. Interested Party
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        Re: so 25% of 65% of members voted for a strike

        5 mins of research says that the union needs to get a majority vote (51%) in favour in order to call for a strike, so with only 25% voting for the strike they didn't even make half the number required.

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    2. nichomach
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: so 25% of 65% of members voted for a strike

      It's pretty obvious that the phrasing is misleading; I can only put this down to some linguistic difficulty on the part of the author. Try:

      http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2012-08-14/capita-it-services-staff-vote-for-strike-action/

      http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5g_crYwSHdAxyskrhJZNRcnv2U2Eg?docId=N0455471344935254786A

      The respective proportions were 4:1 and 9:1 on a 65% turnout, which is quite a different kettle of fish.

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      1. Havin_it
        Reply Icon
        Headmaster

        Re: so 25% of 65% of members voted for a strike

        Thanks for the background, nichomach. Terrible bit of intelligibility FAIL by the author there. So what they wanted to say was

        The union Unite said 65 per cent of members at Capita ITS voted 4 to 1 in favour to strike and 9 to 1 for action short of a strike.

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        1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Re: so 25% of 65% of members voted for a strike

          I'll put my hands up and apologise: that was my fault. I totally cocked up the figures during the editing process, I completely misunderstood what the author meant.

          The article has been amended.

          C.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "reseller-cum-integrator"

    Am I the only one who thought thinks that a "reseller-cum-integrator" is description of an older trade?

    Anonymous because I don't want people to know I think like that...

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reg Maths department offshored ?

    Other news agencies report the figures as 4 to 1 voting for a stike, and 9 to 1 voting for action short of a strike.

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  5. Anonymous Coward 101

    If it's true that only 2% of the IT workforce are going on strike then it's futile - which it would have been if 100% go on strike. Might as well just collect the redundancy and get the fuck away from the awful place.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah, strike, that will show em. And whilst you are doing that you could fill in your JSA claims form

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    1. Matt 21
      Reply Icon

      Or don't strike

      ...and fill the forms in anyway! At least they're trying.

      We need to keep IT jobs in the UK if we want to pay for things like the Olympics.

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      1. ukgnome
        Reply Icon

        Re: Or don't strike

        Agreed, but if the company isn't profitable with that model then maybe it's time to cut costs. It is a shame, but maybe if they had of been realistic with their contracts then this wouldn't be happening. It's the G4S mentality and as soon as 3rd party vendors realise it doesn't work the sooner the economy will pick up.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Strike now or get "Struck" later

    How is a strike futile when it can completely close that company down and make it lose it's contracts? They are going to give you the "Shaft" anyway, may as well hit first and ask questions later. While you are at it, add age, gender and racial reverse discrimination claims just for the fun of making them pay lawyers to defend those claims. They may be hard for Capita to defend as the usual offshoring results in older, educated male workers getting tossed out in favor of younger less educated workers of either gender (but lowest cost would logically be female)

    A) IF you are going to lose your job anyway, delaying the process while killing these parasites is a bonus.

    B) The sooner Crapita cannot fulfill it's agreements and contracts, the sooner some other LOCAL company will be looking to fill it's rosters with new employees because the delays will require immediate action to get the work done.

    C) You might even be able to work direct for the end user at better pay rates and benefits because they are up the creek without the paddle.

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    1. Brad Ackerman
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: Strike now or get "Struck" later

      The IT-outsourcing business model can be summed up as "find a gullible board, promise the moon, and hold their business hostage." As such, it doesn't matter whether Capita can fulfill their contracts because the customer is too incompetent to notice — remember, they sacked all the people who know anything about IT when they decided to outsource, and the customer's non-IT employees are running around like crazy building their own parallel IT department because that's the only way they can get work done. The worst that can happen to them is that the contract will go to Fujitsu, HP (the company that brought you NMCI), CSC... see a pattern here?

      Oh, and you're not going to work for the end user because you don't have a good-enough razzle-dazzle routine. The only option for sanity in IT is to find an employer (such as Intel) with sufficient clue to have a policy banning all non-employees from having root access. Or make the killer pay package as a VP-of-amorality for one of the outsourcers, of course.

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  8. Ascylto
    Big Brother

    23456

    What are you meanings? It is raining dogs and cats here. My name is Kevin and your calls is important for us. Capita is very pleased your callings today. We are hopings you will be with us tomorrow mornings or forever I need the money.

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