FINANCIAL TIMES PENSION SCHEME

Motion Text

That this House is concerned about the continued lack of adequate protections for final salary or defined benefit pension schemes where companies are taken over; notes that when Pearson Group sold the Financial Times to Nikkei, workers were told that the terms of the pension scheme would be fair and equivalent under the new ownership; further notes that for some the changes introduced to the pension scheme will mean a shortfall amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds over a 20-year retirement; calls on the new management to enter meaningful negotiations with representatives of the National Union of Journalists over alternative proposals; supports the right of workers at the Financial Times to take industrial action in the absence of any such negotiations; and further calls on the Government to commit to a thorough review of protection for the private pension arrangements of workers across the private sector.