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Thames Water is preparing to axe up to 300 jobs.
The water company has announced that around 140 jobs will be cut from its retail and digital divisions.
It confirmed that as many as 160 unoccupied roles are also at risk of being cut but did not specify which divisions those positions sit in. Thames did say that no “front line” workers would be impacted by the planned redundancies.
Of the 140 planned redundancies, 89 are within Thames’ retail division with 39 members of staff in the digital team also facing redundancy.
The proposed job cuts follows negotiations with trade unions on a pay offer that began in the summer. Thames workers are due to vote on the latest pay deal in the coming weeks, with strike action likely to follow if workers vote against the latest offer.
Thames said it would minimise compulsory redundancies wherever possible, through redeployment and voluntary redundancy.
Union GMB, which last week said remuneration talks had gone as far as they could after staff were offered an increased pay deal, described the redundancies as “abhorrent”.
“Thames Water has danced with the devil and now workers are paying the price,” Gary Carter, GMB national officer, said.
“In the 40 years since privatisation, we’ve seen virtually no investment, systematic asset stripping and billions of public money drained from the system to fill already building shareholder and fat cat coffers.”
“As a result, Thames is on its knees and water workers are losing their livelihoods,” Carter added. “It’s abhorrent and systematic of the failed experiment that is water privatisation.”
A spokesperson for Thames said job losses were necessary as part of the refocused turnaround plan that hinged on making the organisation more efficient.
They said: “Delivering our refocused turnaround plan will strengthen the operational and financial resilience of Thames Water, so that we can continue to meet our customers’ needs, and create a platform from which to accelerate progress, underpinning our business plan for 2025-2030 and beyond.
“However, we know we can’t do everything. The last year has been an extremely challenging year for the business and we continue to take a rigorous approach to financial discipline throughout the company in order to operate within budget.
“We need to make more difficult but necessary decisions to ensure we continue to deliver to our budgets. That’s why today we’ve announced a range of measures to reduce our costs further and become more efficient. This means we are consulting on a proposal which could lead to the potential loss of around c.300 roles.”
During negotiations on pay that between Thames and workers unions, Thames tabled a 7% pay rise, up from the previous offer of 5.25%.
GMB said the higher offer was “a welcome shift” in the talks with Thames and a ballot will now take place to accept or reject the revised offer. In the event of members not accepting the 7% rise, unions would hold a vote on industrial action.
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