by Our News Desk

A STAFF revolt over pensions “robbery” could provoke industrial action on Nikkei’s very first day of owning the Financial Times, journalists warned yesterday.

The FT’s NUJ father of chapel Steve Bird spoke of an “open revolt” among the paper’s staff, arguing that a plan to cut pensions costs by at least £4 million a year would hit employees hard.

“Hundreds of senior staff will see their pensions cut by up to a half in order to pay rent on the FT building,” he said.

“Whatever financial constraints Nikkei have placed on the FT are being passed on to the journalists.”

The paper’s press office says that claims it is seeking to make cost savings from pensions are “categorically untrue.”

Yet the NUJ chapel, which tweets as @ftnuj, has posted on Twitter part of a document from the HR department that states: “Members are assumed to increase their contributions to the maximum required to obtain the full company matching contributions for their age.

“Based on this assumption, company contributions are assumed to decrease...”

An adjoining column under the heading “cost saving” assesses this as £5m.

An NUJ chapel meeting planned for tomorrow is expected to endorse a motion passed by an open meeting of 300 staff on October 7 that supported industrial action.

The meeting united journalists, administration and IT staff and was so packed that some employees had to listen in on phones because they couldn’t fit into the room.

NUJ national organiser Laura Davison condemned consultations over the new pensions as “fundamentally flawed.

“This smash-and-grab raid on pensions must stop,” she insisted.