Fujitsu closes final salary scheme to current members

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8:17 am, May 15, 2009
Fujitsu closes final salary scheme to current members

The Unite trade union has condemned plans by technology company Fujitsu to close its final salary pension scheme to existing members.

Japanese-owned Fujitsu Services closed the scheme to new members nine years ago, but the decision still affects about 4,000 of its 14,500 UK and Ireland employees, including hundreds of staff based in Manchester.

Fujitsu said it had been forced to take the decision because the scheme has run up a deficit of about £1bn.

It has begun a 90-day consultation with affected staff and will offer them membership of its defined contribution scheme.

Unite’s national officer Peter Skyte pointed out that the company was still highly profitable and said the union would resist the move.

Fujitsu, which took over the former ICL business, moved into newly built 175,000 sq ft offices in Central Park, North Manchester in 2005, where it said 900 staff would be relocated from its previous offices in nearby Gorton and from elsewhere in the North West.

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