Members of the Aslef and RMT unions will strike for 24 hours in an ongoing dispute over pensions and planned changes to staffing of the Underground network.
OK, pensions dispute:
So what are the proposals management have outlined to Government in their Pension Option Paper even
though they know their employees will be worse off in retirement:
1. Changing how benefits are built up from Final Salary to CARE. This will result in your pension at
retirement being based on an average of your pensionable salary throughout your service instead of
your final pensionable salary at retirement. This will ultimately result in you receiving a lower
Joint Trade Union Update
pension and smaller lump sum
2. Increasing the Normal Retirement Age (NRA) to either 65 or to the State Pension Age (SPA) which
is due to increase to age 68. While members of the TfL Pension Fund can currently take their
benefits in full at age 60 any increase in the NRA will result in a reduction of benefits if a
member takes their pension before the age of 65 or the SPA
3. Pension contributions could be increased (see below). You will pay more for less
4. Pensions in payment are currently increased in line with RPI and it is proposed that future increases
will be based on the lower method of inflation CPI which would be capped at 5% for all members.
This will make you poorer in retirement
The Pensions Position Paper is quite explicit when it outlined what this means to members when it gives
several examples of what individual grades can expect to lose when they retire.
They want to remain on final salary plus RPI at age 60?
Fuck ’em.
Can’t blame them for wanting to keep ridiculously generous pensions.
All the guff at the moment about Hunt’s proposed increase in the pension lifetime allowance is because so many public sector workers are breaching the £1m lifetime allowance.
As ever it all stems from MPs.
Not content with earning a fortune for doing the square root of Sweet Fanny Adams, they need a golden goodbye and a pension that has long been unavailable to the common weal. The poor sods who do the work, the Uncivil Service have to get gold plated pension so they don’t revolt and it cascades down so all public sector workers get the same treatment.
Of course, MPs have to put up with bloody voters to get on the gravy train (all that plus amazing tax free “expenses”), hence the irresistible urge to get on the caviar train that is the EU.
Oops, forgot the capital gains tax concessions so the poor bloody taxpayer can fund their acquisition of a property empire!
Hunt the Cunt will have to provide a loophole for that in his proposed increase in the tax take…
“Changing how benefits are built up from Final Salary to CARE. ” This has happened in, for instance, the University scheme (USS) and many others.
“Increasing the Normal Retirement Age (NRA) to either 65 or to the State Pension Age (SPA) which
is due to increase to age 68.” The latter has happened in ditto.
“Pension contributions could be increased … You will pay more for less”: yup, again.
“Pensions in payment are currently increased in line with RPI and it is proposed that future increases
will be based on the lower method of inflation CPI”: aye, same again.
In other words the changes are pretty commonplace, but milder than many schemes suffered. For instance USS now limits the DB part of the pension to (I think) the first £40k of salary – after that it’s a DC scheme.
And the consequence for USS is that the scheme still looks unaffordable; further reductions may be effected. In many other private sector pensions DB has vanished for all newstarts, and often all DB accrual has stopped for old timers too.
If I were King of the World the first change I’d make for DB pensions is that I’d increase the multiplier linking annual pension to Lifetime Allowance from 20 to 30. The second is I’d remove all DB accrual for everyone employed by government, including MPs. The third is I’d hold a consultation on increasing LTA while setting machine-gunners on the apparat at Aslef and RMT.
I await today’s budget from Jackanapes Hunt with bated breath.
Note that it’s CARE not CAE, I.e. it’s NOT average earnings (as widely reported) but Average REVALUED earnings, which makes it massively more valuable.
The Unions won’t mention that though.
What Andrew C says and its also why the unions are desperate for the railways to be fully nationalised again especially as we are heading for a Labour government. Happy days for them:
Protected pay
Protected pensions
No need to worry about quality or even quantity of service.
Fair enough change future accrual rate and access to pensions derived from that. Existing pension pots should be honoured with current rules. I’m sure pension trustees are at liberty to do what they like, but it’s pretty cuntish to reduce what you thought you had in the bag (subject to the scheme not collapsing). It’s not as if pension schemes are not audited to death and any underfunding has suddenly appeared as a surprise.
The government doesn’t want anyone to access their pensions while they are young enough to actually enjoy it. You now must work until you’re knackered even if you spent decades planning and saving so you might have some time and money to enjoy a reasonable retirement.