Strike action looms over pension closure

Three unions are to ballot members at the Flora to Persil to Cif household products group Unilever over its plans to close its defined benefit pension scheme, affecting 5,000 of the firms 7,000 UK workforce.

Workers at the firm were told in April that the final salary scheme would close to existing members in January 2012. The scheme closed to new members back in 2008.

The company plans to transfer staff pension pots in January 2012 to a two-part scheme made up of a defined benefit career average plan and a defined contribution investing plan.

But union representatives from Unite, the GMB and Usdaw have announced they will ballot members for industrial action over the matter. This ballot follows an earlier union vote, which found that only 22 out of 1,459 respondents backed the company’s plans to close the scheme.

The unions have rejected the household goods manufacturer’s claims that the scheme is “unaffordable”, citing the company’s good performance despite the difficult trading conditions. 

Jennie Formby, national officer for food and drink at Unite, said: “Unilever has been breathtakingly arrogant in the way it has tried to push these changes through.”

www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2011/09/unilever-pension-closure-prompts-strike-ballot.htm