LONDON, November 13 /PRNewswire/ --

Unite, the UK's largest union, is calling on IT giant HP/EDS to reverse its decision to cut a quarter of the UK's workforce and is warning the company that it should look for a business strategy for long term growth rather than looking to cut costs.

Unite is also calling on the government to create a level playing field for employment rights and protection. The job cuts announced by HP/EDS represent the latest example of the disproportionate effect faced by UK workers compared to employees in most other European countries as the government's light touch approach on regulation and employment legislation means that it is quicker, cheaper and easier to axe jobs in the UK. Over one third of the total job losses in HP/EDS are planned for the UK, and no other country in Europe appears to be facing the severity of the job cuts.

Unite will be posting its message to HP outside a number of UK sites of the company, including Bracknell, Bristol and Reading as part of a European day of action organised by trade unions across the company with events happening in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain, France and Germany.

Unite believes HP/EDS is a profitable company with very healthy finances and does not accept that the HP and EDS merger should be about short term job cuts.

Peter Skyte, Unite national officer, said: This should be a merger for growth not a merger for cuts. HP in the UK is predominantly a services company and critically reliant on people for this. It is completely unacceptable that the UK is bearing the brunt of these global job loses.

HP/EDS are taking advantage of the fact that it is quicker, cheaper and easier to cut jobs here than in the rest of Europe where there is better worker protection.

The EDS entity with 14,000 employees out of the combined HP/EDS 20,000 in the UK is taking the brunt of the job cuts with around 3000, going on for 25% of the workforce. This is the pattern elsewhere across Europe, where the services businesses are being targeted, as part of an expanded offshoring strategy.

HP management has sought to justify the disproportionate job cuts in the EDS business by stating that these were already planned as part of a three year plan. Unite has privately learned from senior sources in EDS that there were no existing plans to reduce headcount across Europe to the extent claimed by HP.

HP has offices in Belfast, Birmingham, Bracknell, Bristol, Derby, Erskine, London and Warrington.

LONDON, November 13 /PRNewswire/ --

For further information please contact Peter Skyte on +44(0)7768-931-302 or Ashraf Choudhury in the Unite Press Office on +44(0)20-7420-8914 or +44(0)7980-224761