back to article Union fears 3,000 EDS job cuts in UK

EDS management are bunkered in a hotel near Heathrow mulling the future of thousands of UK and Europe-based staff, following Hewlett-Packard’s decision to slash nearly 25,000 jobs earlier this week. Yesterday the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union expressed fears that at least 3,000 UK workers would be given their …

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  1. Nicholas McGee
    Heart

    3k less people to rip-off the tax payer?

    A start I guess.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    We're all doomed

    Ho Dear :(

    Looks like we are going down faster than HBOS

  3. caesar
    Paris Hilton

    None of the customers will notice the difference anyway

    Lets face it, EDS are another BT-like company - so large and faceless, no one actually takes responsibility for anything and essentially are there for the free ride. Perhaps the results will improve customer service and clients will actually get their monies worth now?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    As an ex DWP civil servant...

    I'd be quite happy with redundancy. Most EDSers who retained their civil service contracts when transitioned to EDS will have very healthy redundancy terms. Couple that with the fact that EDS as an employer are atrocious, and there are many of us desperate to be offered redundancy.

  5. TeeCee Gold badge

    Aha!

    "Former civil servants employed by EDS...."

    So, that's how EDS keep getting uk.gov cash shovelled at them despite an ever-growing list of expensive cockups.

    The only mystery here is why HP would want to make the Golden Goose an endangered species?

  6. Paul R
    Thumb Down

    @TeeCee

    You are aware aren't you that when a company like EDS takes on a contract (any contract, not just a government one) they get a significant chunk of the current staff with it. It'd be madness to do it any other way. You can't just let 1000s of staff with business knowledge be replaced overnight by staff with none.

    Thus, yes, on most government contracts there are a very significant number of ex civil servants.

    It's also got absolutely nothing to do with the government shovelling cash at EDS.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    EDS, a HP company

    Having worked at EDS now for nearly 8 years - I can honestly say that it is one of the worst run organisations I have ever had the pleasure to work for.

    There are way too many managers whose job appears to be monitoring a spreadsheet. i.e. they are not managers at all... This has been a growth industry at EDS for the last 8 years so I know there is plenty of fat to cut.

    As a techie I have watched (and complained) as these managers have continuously reduced the budgets based on no evidence whatsoever. They cut budgets because that is what they need to do to meet their stupid targets set from above. This means we often have too few people when it matters and then dozens of fire fighters later. They dont understand the concept of risk management preferring to stick their heads up their a***s and hope for the best.

    Financial control is a joke. There isnt any. We seem to spend every penny the customer gives us often robbing Peter to pay Paul (firefighters) which is not ethical and maybe illegal. As a tax payer it makes my blood boil to see how unprofessional this outfit is. The customer doesnt understand, or cares not to, the concept of a cost benefit analysis. They keep asking for new features costing 10s of 1000s that will only affect a handful of customers. No commercial business would do this!

    And then we have cheapShore. This appears to be the only game in town for our executives - both previous EDS and now HP. They may cost less but they are nowhere near as good as us despite what they say, make lots of mistakes and the customer is starting to notice and complain. However, unlike us they can be bullied (exploited) into working all hours with no pay - how ethical is that?

    Amongst the EDS staff on each project there are many heroes keeping things going despite EDS processes and management. If 3000 are let go then they will be cutting a lot of these people. EDS, an HP company will lose lots of UK Government contracts as project after project fails. What is worse is that our Government is colluding in this cheapShore exercise!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @Nicholas McGee

    Can't wait until it's your turn to be made redundant, again.

    Such glee that 3K people will loose their jobs and the effect it will have on their families :) what a wonderful person you are.

    Pillock

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    are you mad

    3k less people to rip-off the tax payer?

    you really thing EDS or HP will get rid of 3000 people and say to the government hey we can reduce the the cost of this contract now???? I dont think so.

    How about 3000 UK Employees on the dole while EDS an HP Company charges you the same amount of cash

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We are being told

    that its mostly going to be in HR, admin and legal. Areas where there is duplication between HP and EDS. That makes sense. HP wouldn't buy a company, and then get rid of the teams it bought the company for.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Agree with AC...

    Agree with AC that EDS is one of the worlds worst run companies - I worked there long enough to know! I was fed up with suggesting ways to improve and then being rejected straight away without thought. If my ideas wasn't good enough maybe someone might have thought of how to improve them or some discussion at least, but NO, the managers just rejected out of hand not willing to take any descision in case it effected their promotions. There was so many managers we didn't know who was the "real" manager!

    Also all the waste in buying crap software - Blue Pumkin was a total joke for our account and probably most others I suspect.

    Oh dear I could go on all day.....

    To the other AC, 3000 EDS losses in the UK is serious for the families and I'll feel sorry for the genuine ones, but far too many in EDS are leeching off the work of the good staff. On my account, I reckon 30% were very poor quality staff - 2 of which were later promoted to dep team leader.

    EDS will forever mean - "Every Day Spreadsheets" instead of Exceptional Delivery Standards"

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Hotel!

    That hotel near Heathrow is probally a massively expensive 5 star complex, but hey it's only money were trying to save.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    3k, more like 12k

    announced today VR for circa 12,000 in the UK

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