Unilever workers from across UK sites took their pension dispute to London on 5 July to campaign against the food and household giant's plans to scrap their defined benefit pension scheme. 

Following an earlier protest last month a group of workers gathered last night at the Business in the Community's Awards for Excellence gala dinner at the Royal Albert Hall, which is sponsored by Unilever, to urge leading businesses to give their backing to the campaign.

The workers, all members of union Unite, wanted to highlight that Unilever's plans to their UK pension fund are unnecessary and are what they call "a betrayal to its loyal workforce". The proposed plans would affect some 7000 scheme members.

In 2008 Unilever UK closed their final salary scheme to new members but said it would keep the scheme open to existing members and no further changes to the scheme would be made. Workers are now angry that these promises are so quickly broken. In the eyes of Unilever however, keeping the scheme open is simply "not sustainable".

New members are currently enrolled in a Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) scheme which was set up as an alternative in 2008. From next year on, all members of the final salary scheme will also be transferred to this scheme.

Coinciding with the London protest was another smaller protest in Manchester, where one of a series of consultation meetings about the issues took place. Here too angry workers had gathered with placards and leaflets to show how they felt.

Speaking to Pension Funds Insider Unite's national officer, Jennie Formby said that members were "absolutely furious" and that "the union's anger was coming to a head".

According to Formby, Unilever has said that the decision to axe the scheme is "driven by global policy, and there is no financial imperative driving the change".

"This is not a company with a huge deficit, the profits in the UK are huge and they are making this decision out of choice," she said.

In the last financial year Unilever's profits were up 26% to 6.3 billion Euros and its turnover was up with 11%.

"Employees are standing shoulder to shoulder in this matter, it is not just our members who feel let down by Unilever," Formby said. "This global giant remains determined to turn its back on its long serving workforce and is not only proposing to close the final salary scheme but is also attacking the benefits of the CARE scheme so that our members stand to lose thousands of pounds each year, with some losing over 30% of their expected pension."

Formby said Unite will fight through to the end and says more protest actions are likely. "Our message to Unilever is clear: fancy dinners and big ticket sponsorship cannot disguise rogue behaviour. [Unilever's] plans will destroy workers' pensions and their families' future. Scrap them now – we will fight these plans all the way until these changes are stopped."

In another statement Unite said: "Unilever's Corporate Purpose states that to succeed requires 'the highest standards of corporate behaviour towards everyone we work with, the communities we touch and the environment we have an impact'. Unilever plans to deprive thousands of staff of the retirement income - there is clearly something wrong with how Unilever is following its corporate responsibility."

The union is urging Unilever, whose products include Pot Noodle, Flora, PG Tips and Dove, to seriously reconsider its pension plans that they say "workers have saved for and been promised".
Unilever declined to comment on the current unrest amongst its workers.

In an earlier statement, which was made in April, Unilever's UK & Ireland chair Amanda Sourry told the press: "The changes have been proposed to help tackle the increasingly unaffordable and unsustainable costs associated with Unilever's UK pension fund."

She referenced to its guiding principles saying that the company was committed to being sustainable in everything it did and that its pension arrangements were "no exception" to that rule.

First published 06.07.2011

azeevalkink@wilmington.co.uk