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FT journalists urge Scardino to intervene in pay dispute

This article is more than 12 years old

The industrial situation at the Financial Times is now looking quite serious.

Journalists who have voted to strike over a pay offer - the details of which are disputed - have called on Marjorie Scardino to intervene.

As chief executive of Pearson, the FT's ultimate owner, the National Union of Journalists' members believe she has the final say.

However, I'm uncertain whether she would be prepared to step in and, by implication, overrule the FT Group's management.

I know she has a high regard for the FT, for its journalists, for journalism and for newspapers, but it's still a big ask for her to get so intimately involved in such a dispute.

One problem she faces is having said the offer is "3.5% with no compulsory redundancies". It may be a short-form way of describing the offer but it doesn't quite square with the way the FT managers have put it.

According to an official statement "the proposed salary increase is 3.5% - with 2-2.5% for all editorial staff and 1% for merit, plus a bonus."

The NUJ's own version, as outlined in an open letter to Scardino on 28 February, says that it amounts to a 2% pay rise for "the vast majority" while "a handful of others and some non-journalists" will receive 2.5%.

The other 1%, says the union, "is being kept back for use to 'retain staff' and to reward certain individuals in a non-transparent way at the sole discretion of the managing editor."

On that basis, NUJ members voted by three to one to take strike action at a packed chapel meeting on 29 February. They have also called on management to meet at Acas.

FT editor Lionel Barber has addressed staff and urged them not to strike. He has also said that action, though disruptive, will not prevent publication.

Sources: NUJ/FT Group

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