Pensions

Vote yes to protect your pension!

Look out for your ballot paper asking you to vote for industrial action to protect your pension - your retirement is at stake. We are asking you to vote YES because proposed changes to your pension scheme simply aren’t fair. This is about your future, about the sort of life you want when you stop working. You pay into your pension to give you security and dignity in retirement. These proposed changes will take that dignity and security away. They mean that if you earn over £15,000 a year, you will pay more for your pension. And most of you will work much longer. Changes recently imposed mean your pension is already worth less and you will receive less when you retire. We say enough is enough Not a penny of this major increase in your contributions will go towards improving your pension scheme. Instead it will go to the Treasury to pay for the excesses of the bankers.

Specific changes include:

• The Government intends to increase member contribution rates – for any one with whole-time equivalent earnings over £15000 the increase could be between 25% and 70% more. Currently if you were earning say £25,000 a year you are now paying 6.5% of your pensionable pay that qualifies for tax relief, £1625 a year to the scheme. If these increases go through this could rise to 9.6% around £2400 a year by 2014/15.  Not a penny of this will go into your pension, it all goes straight to the treasury.
• The Government want to change the way your pensions are calculated starting by 2015 and the new scheme would provide significantly inferior benefits compared to the current scheme. Many members will struggle to accrue pensions that would take them out of poverty in retirement. This may mean that instead of earning a pension of £417 per year on an annual salary of £25000 it may be as low as £250 a year for future service – that’s a 40% drop!
• The Government wants to increase retirement ages to match State Pension Age for all members in their proposed new scheme with no exceptions. Most members who joined before 2008 retain the right to retire at 60. Many who had Mental Health Officer status and Special Class Status in 1995 retain the right to retire at 55. This means that if you were still to retire at say the age of 60yrs the benefits on future service in the new scheme could be reduced by between 36% and 48%.

Vote YES – you can’t afford to do anything else.

For more information go to Unison's national pensions website.