Water company has announced plans to axe up to 140 jobs, says union

The GMB said Thames Water told the union at a meeting on Thursday that it is to start consulting on up to 140 redundancies.

The GMB has said Thames Water told the union it is to consult on job cuts (Rui Vieira/PA) (PA Wire)

A water company has announced plans to cut more than 100 jobs, according to a union.

The GMB said Thames Water told the union at a meeting on Thursday that it is to start consulting on up to 140 redundancies.

The plans involve the loss of retail and digital jobs, said the union.

GMB national officer Gary Carter 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 bulging shareholder and fat cat coffers.

“As a result, Thames is on its knees and water workers are losing their livelihoods.

“GMB will fight to minimise any compulsory redundancies and make sure our members get every penny they are due.”

A Thames Water spokesperson 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.

Change does mean difficult decisions and we are focused on supporting our colleagues throughout the process

Thames Water spokesperson

“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 300 roles.

“We will seek to minimise compulsory redundancies wherever possible, through redeployment and voluntary redundancy.

“Frontline colleagues will not be impacted by these proposed changes, with roles at risk primarily in our retail and digital functions as well as some other areas.

“Change does mean difficult decisions and we are focused on supporting our colleagues throughout the process.”