TCH to honour pension scheme for rural papers

THE group managing director of Thomas Crosbie Holdings (TCH), Anthony Dinan, has said the group will honour the defined benefit pension plans of employees working in its regional publications.

TCH made its position known to workers three weeks ago and Mr Dinan said “as far as he was concerned the group had a moral obligation to honour the defined benefit pension plans of its workers”.

Outlining his position Mr Dinan said: “The company was not prepared to change the terms of the employment contract of the 17 employees who have defined benefit pension plans in its regional papers.”

TCH is a member of the Regional Newspapers Association of Ireland (RNAI), which threatened in February to end the defined benefit pension plans of close to 300 members in their various regional newspapers.

In response, the NUJ balloted its members which voted by an 82% majority for strike action.

However, the threat to strike at 27 regional papers was lifted following the successful outcome to negotiations at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).

In the meantime, RNAI agreed to resume contributions to the national defined benefit pensions scheme.

Union and management representatives have in the interim agreed on a three-month timeframe for the conclusion of discussions on the pension scheme.

Those talks are continuing. Seamus Dooley, NUJ Irish secretary, said discussions have been continuing and he felt the matter could still end up before a full hearing of the Labour Court before the matter is fully resolved.

“We are happy that the current threat to the pension scheme has been lifted,” he said.

At the time, members were enraged by the unilateral decision to wind up the scheme and by the initial insistence of the RNAI that they would not attend the LRC, said Mr Dooley.

He said the NUJ is also seeking to have the pension entitlement based on a salary of €29,000 and not the current €25,000 figure that no longer relates to the real earnings of most workers.

Despite the ongoing talks, it is understood journalists at the various titles are still concerned that the threat to the defined benefit scheme has not gone away.

Some members fear that further moves will be made by one of the major players to introduce a defined contribution scheme for as moves to cut costs intensifies.