DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - Labour unions want to move quickly to commit energy groups E.ON and RWE to avoiding forced redundancies in the planned break-up of RWE's networks and renewables unit Innogy, a board member of the Verdi union said.

"We will now call for the ban of forced layoffs," Andreas Scheidt, who also serves as deputy chairman of E.ON's supervisory board, told Reuters. "We know that employees are worried. We will make sure they're safe."

E.ON and RWE earlier this week announced the plans that will see them beef up their own businesses with parts of Innogy in one of Germany's largest-ever utility deals.

E.ON has flagged as many as 5,000 job cuts, about 7 percent of the future entity, and Chief Executive Johannes Teyssen said he was confident this could be done without forced layoffs. RWE, meanwhile, does not expect cuts due to the deal.

Through the transaction, E.ON will become Europe's largest network and retail energy player, with about 70,000 employees, while RWE will turn into the continent's third-largest renewables player with a workforce of about 23,000.

E.ON has said it expects synergies of 600 to 800 million euros ($740-987 million) as part of the deal, mostly in its retail segment, while RWE has put savings from the integration of E.ON's and Innogy's renewable operations at about 50 million.

($1 = 0.8105 euros)

(Reporting by Tom Kaeckenhoff; Writing by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Maria Sheahan)

Stocks treated in this article : RWE, E.ON, innogy SE