NUJ: FT journalists vote for three-hour walkout

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Financial Times journalists have voted to carry out a three-hour walk out on Thursday (22 March) next week if a solution with management is not found, following industrial action on Tuesday, according to the National Union of Journalists.

Members of the union working at the FT carried out a two-hour mandatory chapel meeting yesterday (Tuesday), described as strike action by the union.

The action was taken in response to a pay offer by the Financial Times which includes a 2 to 2.5 per cent rise for all editorial staff and a 1 per cent incentive "for merit".

The NUJ has claimed that a 2 to 2.5 per cent pay rise would equal a cut in pay in real terms and its members voted in favour of strike action earlier this year. According to an announcement members of the union yesterday voted in favour of taking further action in the form of a three-hour mandatory meeting next Thursday to decide on the next step "if an agreement with management cannot be reached".

"Talks between the two sides at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service have, to date, failed," the union says.

Two motions were passed at the meeting, included a unanimous vote of "no confidence in the senior management of the Financial Times over its failure to ensure transparency in its dealings and for the contempt shown to staff throughout the pay negotiations".

A second motion was passed with one vote against it, stating "the chapel expresses its deep disappointment at the failure of management to uphold the principles of the Financial Times and its long history of high-quality journalism".

In a statement yesterday the FT said it considered the action taken yesterday "and any future action as unwarranted and unreasonable" and that it was "placing an unnecessary burden on colleagues committed to publishing the newspaper and the website".