Strike and final pension

[EuroExpat]

Weren´t you shocked when you heard on breakfast TV this morning that the average worker striking today will receive a pension of only 4000 pounds per year? I´m absolutely horrified!! And the pompous so-and-so doing the interview said men deserved to get more money as they "worked" for more years than women. This sort of thing really makes me worry that women feel feminism is no longer needed.

[Mercy]

sorry, 'as they had spent their projected profits'

[Mercy]

MadamePlatypus, yes I agree. This all started long before Labour came into power, ie, during the 1980's. Private cos. then raided their own pension schemes when the recession hit the following decade and they has spent all their projected profits.

[Normsnockers]

The government employees will also be getting state pension in addition to their employer's pension scheme and I have no problem with paying into the communal state pension pot, knowing that any monies I get out of it when I retire will be a very small in proportion to the taxes/NI deducted from earnings whereas these days it is possible for lower earning indviduals to pay no tax and National Insurance at all and still build up credits towards a state pension.

The ability to build up credits towards a state pension despite being on low earnings is to be applauded although it could be said to be swings and roundabouts as we don't we have a minimum income guarantee anyway ? The U.K does at least provide a welfare state which we should not be wholly ashamed of compared to some other westernised nations.


We are not being rampantly thatcherist and me,me,me about the whole thing but I for one can't see that the affected public sector workers have, in doing their comparisons, taken into consideration the private sector workers contributing to maintaining their status quo if strike action is successful and that we may be a little cheesed off as we are already

a) making up pur own shortfalls courtesy of the governments stealth tax on pension pots.

b) accepting that we will have to work longer than we were initially led to believe when we commenced our working lives and pension schemes.

c) making up the shortfalls of the public sector employees whose final salary pension schemes the government has declined to tackle and convert to money purchase schemes. (NHS/EDUCATION ETC)

The only comparison seem to be with the best schemes available (NHS/EDCUATION).

[MadamePlatypus]

I have no problem with paying for somebody's pension - its just part of their remuneration package. I don't care when they retire. I am no more 'subsidising' that I do when I pay for any service or product that covers the cost of a salary. For myself, I accept that I am unlikely to get a final salary pension. However, I have known this since I started work 12 years ago and planned accordingly. People who entered the work force 20-30 years ago reasonably expected that by taking a job that offered a final salary pension they had made adequate provision for their future. To move the goal posts now is not fair. Equally I find it very annoying that companies who took 'holidays' from pension contributions when the stock market was high now suddenly don't have enough funds to maintain final salary pensions. Maybe there should have been a bit more striking by the private sector.

Re: state pensions, when the welfare state was set up, it was seen as a way to pool resources so that nobody would go without. People paid their national insurance expecting that that they would be able to put a roof over their head and food on the table in their old age. Again, I don't expect my national insurance contributions to pay for anything more than a bag of boiled sweets by the time I am old, but I absolutely think that the current pension is a scandal, particularly bearing in mind the sacrifices that many older pensioners made during the war.

America is a country where you can work three jobs and still live in a trailer park and rely on food hand outs. I am sure that way of doing things has its merits, but I am glad that for the most part people in the UK have diffent values.

[expatinscotland]

Gordon gives me the chills. And not in a good way.

[Normsnockers]

Ooh Uwila, you don't have to go that far,

Just getting eligible to vote and not voting for Gordon Brown would do !

[Uwila]

Note to self: Must get citizenship so I can vote tory.

[Uwila]

Lots of similar storie in the private sector, TB. For examlpe, when my company was slashing the Ts and Cs, they also froze raises, and changed the work week from 37.5 hours to 40 hours. They did later give raise equal to the increase inhours but I think they were given legal advice that they would be in trouble if they didn't.

Rasies were frozen across the company (tens of thousands of employees). Rhumor has we are getting rases this year.... I'll believe it when it is deposited into my bank account.

[Normsnockers]

Will so many workers whose pensions are being affected still be voting labour at the next election ?

[tb]

My husband is 57 and has worked in the public sector for 36 years. He is nearly blind in 1 eye due to the effects of an auto-immune disease and with nearly 30 years experience as a fully-qualified Chartered Chemist is still paid less than a newly qualified accountant. His pension is identical to those that used to be offered by private sector schemes in companies such as Unilever, Littlewoods etc.

No matter how much his pension is, 50% of b all, is still b all, and represents deferred salary.

Despite increasing responsibility, for most of the 1980's he received no increases in salary, and now that fixed pay scales have been abolished in the organisation where he works
he receives rises that are less than inflation. The performance percentages are skewed in favour of employees with less experience, and therefore lower salaries, who can be relied upon to approve them.

Each month, after mortgage, council tax etc are paid we have £200 to buy food, petrol etc. Hardly a 'jolly'. The latest proposal would reduce his pension by 33% if he left 8 years early as a fine, and would force all staff to take a cash lump sum rather than provide a larger pension for partner/children after their death.

Rule of 85 - yes in theory, in reality it doesn't exist.

Sorry it this reads like a rant, but he wouldn't even take time off when given a sick note for acute glaucoma a he reckoned he could still see well enough out of 1 eye!! He was also asked to go into work the day of his father's funeral as his boss at the time preferred to sit in his office all day writing text book rather than manage a laboratory!!

[Uwila]

sorry, I only stock lager. Oh bugger, that reminds me I'm meant to be doing the Tesco shopping now. Whay are there only 24 hours in a day?!?!?!

[Mercy]

Are you all expat North Americans?

[philippat]

and I'll have a bitter, please

[philippat]

no, but america has considerably different priorities. Fair enough, just in my view it's worth striking for what I believe our society stands for.

One of the reasons some people working in the public sector don't change jobs into the private sector is because they believe they make a difference to their communities.

parping out now, too wide a divide to try and cross. Just don't any of you expect to enjoy my museum in the future because I'll have left to do something that gets me more money... (like work in a museum in the US for example...)

[Uwila]

Sorry, that was meant to be point, but come to think of it I'd quite like a pint.

[Uwila]

PHilipat, what is your pint? That everything that comes from America is bad? Hmmmm... that's a pretty weak argument. Not to mention untrue.

[expatinscotland]

No one said that philipat. The two of us just described our experiences is all.

I don't buy ANY argument as to why as a low-paid taxpayer who works in the private sector I should be expected to fund someone's 5 earlier years of retirement than I get just b/c they work in another sector.

[philippat]

I'm sorry, but I really can't take any argument seriously that says 'we do it much better in america'.

[Normsnockers]

I have to agree with ExpatinScotland.

Unless we face the truth now, things are indeed being to be grim in retirement for many who will spend their time berating the governmemt for the paltry value of the state pension which is only intended as a safety net to ensure against "starvation" not deprivation.

[Normsnockers]

Apologies if I use the term civil servant a little too broadly, I was trying to refer to all employees of the government, be it teachers, nhs staff, local government and any others I may not have listed.

When I worked for the NHS I erroneously considered myself a "civil servant", probably better to say a public sector employee then.

All of the above and the real civil servants have their pensions at least part funded by government funds and hence partly funded by taxes paid by themselves and private sector workers.

Private sector workers have their pensions funded by themselves and whatever contribution is on offer from their employers. The employer funds its contributions to employye pension schemes out of profits.

[Mercy]

Normsnockers - civil servants are not the same as NHS or local government employees. Civil servants work for central government and unless things have changed recently, receive a non-contributory pension. They also get a much higher London Weighting than council employees.


Can't comment on any other facts or figures as I'm well out of my depth!

[Uwila]

Nice post, Normsnockers.

[expatinscotland]

The figures aren't going to add up w/the way things are going. There just won't be enough taxpayers to support people retiring at 60 and living till mid-80s+. Goalposts move all the time in life.

I know it sounds harsh, but if it's not dealt with NOW it's really going to be nasty.

I never saw state 'pension' contributions as anything but another tax on me, b/c I don't expect to get FA from it by the time I'm 60, 65, whatever.

[Normsnockers]

Remind me again why I have to increase my own pension contributions to achieve the previously projected level of pension benefits but civil servants expect "their employer" to see them right on this matter ?

By expecting their employer to maintain the status quo won't we all just pay more in taxes to make up the government employees investment pot shortfall.

Therefore, some of us are trying to make up our own shortfall and have no choice but to contribute to the public sector shortfall also.

I started contributing to the state pension on the understanding that as a woman I'd retire at 60, the goalposts moved for that also and now I have to work to 65 before I can draw state pension.

I'll stop now before I get too wound up.

[expatinscotland]

'My company just ended final salary pension. It made a lot of people very mad. A lot of them left the company. I, however, being American took it in stride because I would never have dreamt of getting such a generous perk. Nobody has final salary pension in the states. We have other savings plans (like 401K).'

Yep. I guess that's what I'm used to.

'Oh, but they promised us.'

Yeah, well, people lie and renege on their promises. It happens all the time.

Look at those Enron b*stards.

I mean, someone working in a bank call centre is pretty low paid, too, but they're not getting to retire at 60.

It's all an outdated social experiment that's failing.

That's reality.