back to article Qinetiq strike action could increase risk to British troops

British staff at Qinetiq, the company formed from an uneasy mixture of privatised UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) research facilities and profitable US war-tech companies, have voted to strike in protest at pay freezes and redundancies. Prospect, which represents some 2,000 of Qinetiq's UK staff - whom it describes as " …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Or.....

    ...Lewis, we could just f**k off and leave the Americans to fight an American war, saving lives and money....but that just wouldn't be British.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Silly or wise sausages?

    Maybe they have a good redundancy plan in place and forcing things into closing the UK office?

  3. Owen Williams
    Happy

    Whacky times are behind us!

    Jacqui has quit. Woohoo!!!

  4. Mike Shepherd
    IT Angle

    Don't worry, Mr Lamb

    It's only public money.

  5. John
    Happy

    Boeing UK????

    Boeing have a massive staff base in the UK if the work on the Chinooks had been given to them it would have been done in the UK with UK staff.

    And having worked with QinetiQ many times, a strike will not effect their productivity in anyway! they are the most useless company in the Defence market!

    Here is hoping that that go bankrupt!

  6. S Larti
    Unhappy

    Sad but...

    Be fair Lewis, a lot of the workforce at Quinetique are good guys, struggling to keep their jobs, although the management are a typical bunch of fat cats running off with taxpayers money under a(nother) dodgy privatisation.

    But everything else you say is true, sadly.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are you auditioning for the Daily Mail?

    I realise you have a soft spot for the armed forces, especially given your background, but really - shouldn't you have slept on this article then toned it down a bit? You could blame all sorts of people for the lack of helicopters, or other lifesaving equipment (so we can better kill other people before they kill us, presumably?). The first part was useful and very interesting - if they're already redundant in all but name then striking won't matter one jot, but to accuse these people of getting our armed forces killed is a bit too Daily Mail, surely?

    Personally I'd rather no one died in conflicts, so if you want to look at this *another* and facetious way the reduction in our operating efficiency means more insurgence (and possibly civilians) get to live another day. That's about as daft a view as saying that these employees trying to keep their jobs and protect their pay is responsible for soldiers dying. I'm fairly sure you won't agree, but I'd appreciate it if you reduced to emotive speculation in future articles as it just smacks of Daily Mail jingoism.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Lies, all lies

    Your claim that the UK arm of the business has lost money ever since privatisation is simply not true. The annual results show an operating profit for the EMEA (non-US) business of 88 million, up 10% from last year's 80 million, and a much bigger order book.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Same old Shit.

    Another taxpayer funded public asset handed to NuLabour's corporate buddies. Guess who is going to get laid off and who is going to get paid off with directorships and expense accounts. I know, it's a no-brainer, but I just thought I'd ask anyway. NuLabour = same Old Tories.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Wrong again

    Once again Lewis you make yourself look like a prize cretin by ill-informed comment on matters you obviously know little about:

    1) The UK staff aren't redundant. As you are so fond of stating, there are MOD contracts aplenty. However the key thing is the UK bit is the only bit the UK managers get their hands on - and they can't manage the business and the opportunities at all. People with ideas jump ship, its easier. The US and Aus bits have greater success because they don't suffer these overpaid incompetents, and because unlike the UK part, they are allowed to manufacture. UK Gov could support UK industry by getting rid of the handcuffs.

    2) The helicopter aren't flying because Boeing couldn't prove they had developed the software properly and wouldn't hand over the source code. That's why they aren't getting their hands on these helicopters, the bastards can't be trusted to deliver systems working to UK standards. Next time you so blithely suggest we should just go and buy american you might like to meditate on the lesson of the Chinooks and air certification standards.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Are you a shareholder?

    Nice logic there, blaming a bunch of scientists and engineers for casualties. Who built that damn helicopters in the first place? Not the boffins. So the staff finally fight back after years of being neglected and taken for granted by a bunch of profiteering fat cats who spend all the profits and money they got from the UK government in the US rather than investing it in the UK (it's easy to buy going concerns and take the credit, much harder to grow a business in a market with lots of big players).

    Morale is so low that a corpse would have more enthusiasm than a Quinetik employee. And then people wonder why the UK business isn't doing as well as it could? I'm just glad I got out when I did.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I still think the QinetiQ sale was the scandal of the decade

    QinetiQ developed a lot of interesting stuff as our DARPA equivalent. They should never have been sold in the first place IMO.

    Their millimetre wave cameras are genius. Safe to use, and yet we trialled US designed active x-ray systems for passenger screening instead. Let's see, a passive millimeter wave system which cannot have any risks (being passive), or an active x-ray backscatter system with an unknown power output which doesn't seem to have had any long term safety trials? Can anyone say skin cancer?

    Stupid government. Still, on the upside at least it looks like Whacqui Jacqui may finally be kicked into touch :)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Extremely ignorant

    This report is the laziest and most ignorant report I've read on El Reg for a long time.

    Complete factual inaccuracy and sensationalism.

    QinetiQ employees are a bunch of good guys who are, generally, underpaid.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I love it

    I love Lewis' straight talking. And once again I think he's hit the nail on the proverbial head. I worked in QinetiQ for over a decade and for probably half that time I was part of the gradual decline he speaks of. Management were so focused on re-organising themselves after the privatisation they failed to spot that once the MOD contracts we were working on were finished there was nothing to replace them. When this finally dawned on them they directed all their energies for two or three years at winning non defence related work using their patented Mk 1 scatter gun, which had it not been a metaphor would have been the most expensive lash up ever made, paid for over decades by the MOD. We'd bid for practically anything. All to no avail as we had no real products to sell. There were occasional successes. Blips really (flukes more like, and several fixed price projects that were so underestimated they cost the company millions to deliver – where these millions came from I could never work out) that were enough to convince the management they were doing a good job. And so it goes on. It has to end at some point, which can't be many years away. If the US and Aussie firms they've recently purchased really knew who owned them they'd organise a management buyout before they could say TALON.

  15. elderlybloke
    Thumb Down

    Why is UK fighting a USA war?

    The yanks decided to attack one of the poorest country on earth about 8 years ago .

    Because Bin Laden was somewhere in the country. Since then they have killed a lot of civilians , just like in Iraq.

    They have become despised by millions (or possibly Billions) of Muslims.

    The poor bloody British troops have been involved in both wars. Britain should have had a look at the experiences in the 1920s and 30s to learn from history.

    How many of you (apart from Politicians ) support these wars of aggression?

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