Prime Minister Theresa May has made a big song and dance about making Britain’s economy work for all Britons and not just the privileged few.
If she wanted an example of what’s currently going wrong, Prudential has provided a good one.
The life insurer has decided to offshore 81 jobs dealing with pension annuities to India with a view towards saving £2m a year.
It is at pains to stress that they are not customer-facing roles, instead fulfilling “administrative” functions. But that won’t provide much comfort to the affected families.
Unite, the union, which has received an overwhelming mandate to take industrial action from members based at Pru’s Reading office from where the jobs are being culled, points out that Prudential UK and Europe chief executive John Foley has recently made four senior appointments.
We don’t know how much they will cost the company, but Prudential is not known for parsimony when it comes to bosses’ pay.
Pru would no doubt argue that it needs to save money because of a decline in its annuities business as a result of the "pension freedom" reforms instituted by Ms May's former colleague, George Osborne.
The insurer would also probably argue that you can’t conflate the redundancies with the executive appointments. Except that you can because they serve as a metaphor for how the British economy works for the few and not the many, whose jobs are being sent around the globe by greedy employers keen to pay their executives more, while keeping shareholders sweet.
Companies are always under pressure to cut costs and make savings. But while they’re happy to axe, outsource or offshore “administrative” roles, they’re rather less keen on reducing the outlay on their executives.
The six of them whose salaries are a matter of public record were collectively paid £31m last year, according to the company’s annual report. That’s right, just six jobs that cost £31m. And there's no chance that they'll ever be offshored with a view to making savings.
No wonder Unite members voted not to co-operate with “Project Jupiter”, the silly name given to the offshoring plan, particularly given that the union presented alternative proposals to the company that it says would have helped it to save money.
No wonder ordinary Britons are increasingly cynical about the behaviour and practices of big business. They’ll be even more cynical if Ms May’s pretty words aren’t backed up by action. And they probably won't be.
