Defend your pension
TfL and the government have signed an agreement to seek cuts to your pension. The only option they can both agree on is to transfer your pension into the LGPS (Local Government Pension Scheme).
You would lose 32% of your pension if you retire at 60 Your pension contributions could increase from 5% to up to 12.5%
Risk is transferred to you so that a fall in financial markets could leave you with a further reduction in benefits or increased contributions.
There is no guarantee that accrued benefits would be fully protected
TfL estimates it would save £60m by transferring the TfL pension into the LGPS. This is because you would pay more and get less. TfL’s savings would be at your expense.
RMT strike action has held off implementation of pension cuts. Keep it that way!
Vote YES for strike action and for action short of strike
Return your ballot paper without delay
LONDON UNDERGROUND SPECIALBULLETIN
May 2023
Keep up the fight
Reasons to vote YES for strike action and action short of strike
B C D E F G H I J
K
No-one else is going to defend our pensions for us. RMT strike action has delayed the implementation of pension attacks from March 2022 to now. Make sure it stays that way!
Over 80% of TfL pension fund members retire before the age of 65. The LGPS retirement age is the state retirement age. That is 67 today and rises to 68 for most of today’s members. Retiring at 60 will lead to a 32% reduction in your pension.
The LGPS has tiered contribution rates up to 12.5%. At the moment the TfL scheme has a fixed employee’s contribution rate of 5%. An increase in pension contributions is just a pay cut by other means.
The TfL scheme makes TfL responsible for covering any shortfall in the scheme. The LGPS is subject to a government cost-cap mechanism that can reduce pension benefits if the employer’s contributions rise above a government set limit. This represents a significant shift in the risk associated with your pension scheme from the employer onto the employee.
Up to now TfL has said past pension accruals will not be impacted by pension reform. But a transfer into the LGPS would need legislation to decide how to treat what you’ve already earned. TfL has written to the government asking how this would be done.
The TfL scheme indexes your pension by RPI. The LGPS uses CPI.
The TfL scheme calculates your pension using your final salary x 1/60th for each year of service. The LGPS uses your career average salary x 1/49th. This will reduce the overall benefits for many TfL fund members, who have been promoted since joining LUL.
The only winner in a transfer into the LGPS is the employer. TfL expects to save around £60m a year if it manages to force the transfer through.
Your pension trustees have not called for any changes to the TfL scheme.
The TfL scheme is in good financial health and TfL is making a surplus again on operations. There is no justification for attacking the TfL pension.
The only way to save our pensions is to fight for them. Vote YES for strike action and YES to action short of strike in the re-ballot.
www.rmt.org.uk
