WORKERS who maintain British war graves face losing £6,000 a year from their pensions.

The government-controlled Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) looks after cemeteries and memorials in 154 countries. It employs 1,250 staff round the globe, including 850 gardeners, who tend the graves of 1.7 million dead from World Wars I and II.

The commission plans to end the staff’s pension scheme, which bases pensions on their salaries at the time of retirement, from March.

Civil Service union PCS described the plan as “obscene.” PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “The work commission staff do to maintain war graves and memorials is hugely important and highly prized by families, and it is obscene for the commission to be slashing their pensions.

“We have said all along that we are prepared to negotiate changes but we will not accept imposed cuts that will leave low-paid staff thousands of pounds worse off.”

A commission spokesman stated: “The CWGC has proposed the closure of its pension scheme in the face of rising costs — 60 per cent since 2005 — which are no longer sustainable within a budgetary environment constrained to the rate of annual inflation, without affecting the Commission’s core commemorative purpose.

“The proposals effect [sic] some 180 UK staff out of the CWGC’s international workforce of 1,250.

“The CWGC remains committed to providing a strong level of retirement benefit for its employees and has proposed a generous alternative group personal pension arrangement with employer contributions of up to 15 per cent.