'FT' Journos: Why Cut Newsroom When Pearson's Making Record Profits?

By: E&P Staff Pearson LLC CEO Marjorie Pearson is expected to hear an earful from Financial Times journalists in Britain Friday at a staff briefing.

The FT newsroom employees are already set to vote on a strike over layoffs and compulsory pay freezes -- and The Guardian newspaper reported Thursday the journalists are now even more incensed following the announcement Pearson's profit rose 11% for 2008.

FT has said it will lay off 80 employees, including 20 from the newsroom. The newspaper is also offering a three-day work week during the summer, as a way to cut costs.

Union staffers have voted to hold a strike ballot in protest at the FT decision to impose 80 redundancies, including 20 journalists, but are negotiating with management over the cuts. Management has offered the news staff the chance to work a three-day week over the summer as one of several cost cuts.

David Crouch, a leader of FT's National Union of Journalists local, told the Guardian's Stephen Brook there is no need for "compulsory redundancies and for a pay freeze at the Financial Times."

He said he had written the paper's management demanding an end to the pay freeze, in light of the Pearson profit.

"The dividend to shareholders is up 7%," Crouch told the Guardian. "Why has there been no 7% pay rise for staff? Does Pearson value its staff less than its shareholders? If staff are being asked to share pain, why are shareholders not included?"

Added Crouch: "At the very least, management now has no case whatsoever to continue to delay on giving a guarantee of no compulsory job losses at the FT and FT.com during the coming reorganization. To continue to procrastinate seems, frankly, perverse."

Profit at the newspaper's corporate unit, FT Group, were up 13% in 2008 -- but more than two-thirds of the unit's revenue comes from digital services. At the newspaper, ad revenue fell 3% for the year.