Unite the union said that around 24 workers at the group’s Fountainbridge site had voted for strike action by a 75% majority, on a turnout of 91%.

The employees are former Scottish Widows workers involved in handling in-bound mail processing services and imaging for Lloyds Banking Group (LBG). 

Communisis was awarded a 10-year BPO contract for in-bound processing with LBG in 2014, a year after it took it on the bank’s transactional print. 

Unite said that the dispute was about the proposed closure by Communisis of a non-contributory pension scheme, “which the workers used to have with Scottish Widows” as well as “the erosion other terms and conditions since their transfer in 2014”. 

Unite industrial officer Sandy Smart said: “Communisis banking workers have taken this very significant step to vote for strike action. The company has behaved with a complete disregard and lack of respect for their workforce, which has culminated in this emphatic vote for strike action. Communisis without any consultation has proposed to close a long-standing pension scheme which the workers used to have with Scottish Widows.”

The company has also imposed a pay freeze for 2021, Unite stated, which Smart said “added insult to injury”.

However, Communisis refuted the claim that there had been no consultation, and said that it had engaged in a 60-day consultation period from 16 November to 15 January.

In a statement Communisis said: “Communisis are in dialogue with Unite the Union, who are representing a small number of our colleagues, specifically relating to the implementation of new pension arrangements. This discussion is ongoing and we are unable to comment further at this time.”

It said that the Scottish situation involved around 1% of Communisis employees who had a very specific legacy pension arrangement. 

“There is no wider impact to any particular group, or area of Communisis,” the firm added. 

The strike action at the Edinburgh site is planned for 6, 12 and 19 April. 

Communisis was taken over by US group OSG at the end of 2018.

In its first set of post-acquisition results, for the period from 11 October 2018 to 31 December 2019, Communisis posted sales of £326.2m, and an operating profit prior to exceptionals of £5.46m. Writing off acquired intangible assets and exceptional costs came to £23.35m, and this along with finance costs of £23.89m propelled the business to a £41.4m pre-tax loss.