The
Communication Workers Union (CWU) has claimed Consignia is planning to reduce
its workforce by 20,000 jobs after the company announced it is to cut costs by
more than £1 billion by March 2003.
A spokesman
for the company said the cost cuts were necessary because of increased
competition and regulatory pressure but denied redundancies would be on the
scale claimed by the CWU.
She said, “We
want to invest in our products and the way in which we deliver them, we want to
invest in our people and we want to ensure our profitability is at a level our
shareholder – the Government – has every right to expect.
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"There
is no intention to reduce the workforce by 15 per cent as the CWU has
erroneously claimed today."
By Ben
Willmott