Unilever has confirmed employees at its Warrington plant are planning a staged protest tomorrow over proposed changes to their pension scheme.

The FTSE 100 company responsible for brands such as PG Tips and Persil said it fully understood the concerns of its employees in reaction to plans to replace the existing final salary schemes with a career average earnings scheme from 2012.

Paul Matthews, spokesman for Unilever said the proposals were first announced to employees in April to ‘ensure their long-term financial sustainability and to maintain the competitiveness of the UK business’.

He explained, ‘The changes have been proposed to help tackle the increasingly unaffordable and unsustainable costs associated with Unilever's UK pension fund.

‘We understand the concerns of employees and their representatives and respect their right to protest.

‘Formal consultation is scheduled to start in June and in the meantime, Q&A sessions for employees to voice their concerns and questions to leaders in the business have been held across the country.’

Despite the protests, the company’s share price was up today, trading at 1,979, a rise of 0.35 per cent.

Across the UK, Unilever employs 5,000 people with around 1,700 of these registered as members of the Unite union, which has organised tomorrow’s walkout.

In its results for the first three months of the year, Unilever announced turnover up by 7 per cent to £9.72 billion (€10.9 billion) and underlying sales growth up 4.3 per cent across all divisions.