Unions say staff were left “shell-shocked” following the announcement by the Trinity Mirror that it was planning to close its final salary pension schemes.
Employees were sent a memo detailing the proposal, which will be brought in following a 2-month consultation.
The email said that the company’s pension fund deficit has risen markedly from £37m in 2001 to £275m earlier this year.
It continued:
“Stopping the build-up of future benefits, the cost of which continues to increase, would help limit the increase in liabilities in the defined benefit pensions schemes and help the Group to fulfil its commitment to pay off the current deficit.
“The Group is, therefore, proposing to close the defined benefit pension schemes to future pension build-up. Current contributing members would no longer build up future benefits in their defined benefit scheme. Instead, they would be given the choice of building up future pension benefits in the Trinity Mirror Pension Plan. We will be consulting about the Group’s proposals over the next two months with members who are affected by the proposed change.”
3000 members of staff will be affected in both regional and national divisions.
“The scrapping of the final salary scheme is the latest in along line of attacks on staff at Trinity Mirror and serious questions need to be asked and answered about the capability of the senior Trinity directors,” said Paul Holleran from the National Union of Journalists.
The final salary scheme was closed to new members in 2002.
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