Inside
Nov 30th: All together now...
City and County of Swansea
Review
Vote YES for action:
STOP THE PENSION THIEVES The prospect of the UK being closed by a public sector strike took a giant leap forwards recently. Up to 3 million workers could strike over pensions in November after union leaders announced a raft of new ballots over pensions. On June 30th civil servants, teachers and lecturers united to take a successful one day strike over their pensions. In November the same unions look set to strike again - but this time joined by a host of other unions, including Unison. The reasons should be obvious. The press lies about public-sector workers being 'well-off', of having 'perks', of 'gold-plated' pensions and
so forth. The reality is a series of swinging attacks by a government determined to make us pay for their economic crisis. The attacks on us in the LGPS represent a pay cut:
⌾ In
future your pension will not increase by the real cost of living (Retail Price Index - RPI) but by a lower rate (Consumer Price Index CPI) so it could be 8.7% less by 2017.
you in contributions will be used to keep council tax low, not to improve the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in the future.
⌾ The government wants to reduce LGPS benefits by 2015, even though we only agreed a new scheme in 2008.
pension - on reduced benefits.
⌾ And if the government gets its way, you will have to pay more tax and National Insurance for your state pension.
⌾ If your job moves to a private or voluntary sector employer, the government wants to take away ⌾ These reductions mean that your right to stay in the LGPS or someone working full-time and similar pension scheme. earning £20,000 will see their future call for coordinated strike action ⌾ Even though your pension won't full pension drop from £333 to £222 The across the whole public sector is grow as much, you will still have to a year. therefore of huge significance. A pay between 50% and 100% more for your pension, depending on your ⌾ The retirement age will increase strike of this size - the biggest since in line with the state pension age, so the 1926 General Strike - carries the earnings. you could have to work until you are potential to stop the back page ⌾ The extra money they take from 68 before you can take on a full
Public Service Not Private Profit
➥
September 2011
TUC: millions move to strike UNISON is Britain's biggest public sector union. We announced at the recent TUC that we would ballot all of our 1.1 million public sector workers for strikes. The Unite and GMB unions announced strike ballots too and the Fire Brigades Union also gave notice of a national dispute. Its national executive will now discuss organising a ballot. All unions are fighting government attacks on public sector pensions. The announcements mean that up to three million workers could strike together in November. Dave Prentis said the Unison ballot would hit 9,000 separate employers groups. He described it as "unprecedented" in scale. "We've been patient, we've cooperated, but there comes a time when we say enough is enough because if we don't they‚ll be back for more" he told TUC delegates. He added, "A ballot unprecedented in scale will cover over a million workers in health, local government, school, further education, higher education, police, the voluntary sector and the environment. "It's a decision we don't take lightly and the stakes are high, higher than ever before, but now is the time to make our stand. It will be hard, we'll be vilified, attacked, set against each other, but we must stay strong and united. Make no mistake congress, this is it. We will take
10 KEY F
the fight to them." TUC delegates gave Prentis a standing ovation. Several other public sector unions including the PCS civil service workers‚ union and the NUT, ATL and UCU education unions˜struck together on 30 June. They are now set to take part in even bigger coordinated strikes with more unions in November. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, described the six months of union negotiations with the government as "an absolute farce". He said, "While we were talking, they announced the attacks. We should unite the public and private sector. We don't want to equalise the misery. We are fighting for fair pensions for all." Referring to the 750,000 who struck on 30 June he said, "In our hundreds of thousands we changed the terms of the debate. Imagine what we can do in our millions. Together we can tell the government 'no'." Brian Strutton, GMB national officer said, "Talks over many months on changes to pensions for GMB members in public services have got nowhere." He said that 300,000 GMB members in the public sector would ballot for "industrial action to begin in late November and to be sustained over the winter and into the spring and summer of 2012. GMB will coordinate action with the other trade unions involved in the dispute." Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary of Unite, told conference, that the 250,000 Unite members in the public sector would ballot. She said, "When the Tories got in we knew we faced the fight of our lives. They would push divisions between workers. We rose to the challenge and organised mass resistance on 26 March. It would be irresponsible to ignore the writing on the wall. Unite is committed to unity to fighting back for all our members against this race to the bottom." And announcing that 43,000 firefighters were moving into dispute, Matt Wrack general secretary of the FBU, attacked the government‚s Hutton review into pensions. He described it as a "hatchet job" saying, "The idea that public pensions are unaffordable is a nonsense. This debate is built up on a lie. Working people shouldn't have to apologise because they are dying soon enough to please the banking industry. We are rejecting plans for zimmer frame firefighters. We stand together, we fight together. Decent pensions for everyone." Cathy Taylor from the UCU said, "Our members are proud to have taken two days of strike
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action already. The UCU is ready, willing and able to stand to with other unions in industrial action." During the debate, the Prison Officers Union committed to balloting those members it could, and breaking the anti-union laws where it couldn't, to join the strikes. Speakers from the NASUWT, ATL, EIS and NUT teaching unions also backed action. Helen Conner from the EIS Scottish teachers‚ union said, "Teachers have had enough and they will be there in November." Christine Blower from the NUT said, "This is a raid on our pensions to fill a hole in the public finances. Enough is enough we must all stand together."
Urgent: update you
We need to make sure that we have you
industrial action – and other – UNISON is
at http://www.unison.org.uk/membership/
The depth of the anger is such that even the FDA, the senior civil servants union, is
https://registration.unison.org.uk/unisonb
balloting. The National Association of Head Teachers is due to announce a strike ballot
JOIN UNISON TODAY contact your steward
later this week. The debates at TUC conference will have given a boost to us everywhere.
Picture: Southampton Council workers struck on June 30th in a dispute on pay
FACTS ABOUT OUR PENSIONS
ore in contributions, the local government pension scheme could pay all its liabilities for twenty years.
e gets £2bn more in contributions than it pays out in benefits every year. This additional money isnʼt stored up for future pensions payments but goes straight
y for the bankersʼ crisis.
he previous government have already reduced the value of public sector pensions by 10%. In particular, under the so-called “cap and share” arrangement,
butions for public sector employers was capped, so that future increases in pension costs above a set level would be paid entirely by employees. experts such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) has already proved that both
rdable and sustainable for the long-term, and that the cost to the taxpayer of public sector pensions has already fallen.
nt to increase public sector pensions contributions by 50% for those earning over £15,000. This additional money wonʼt be used to improve pension schemes the Treasury. So, in effect, it will be a tax on those that can ill-afford it.
tributing towards a company pension scheme in the private sector has almost halved since 1991. Two-thirds of private sector employers do not pay a single ersʼ pensions. This will force millions of workers into poverty in their retirement and the taxpayer will have to pick up the multi-billion pound benefits bill.
ocal government workers is around £4,000 a year and £7,000 a year for NHS workers. For most women itʼs even less.
firms – Britainʼs largest companies – have, on average, a final salary pension scheme worth £3.91m. This would result in a pension of
s bigger than the average occupational pension (£9,568) and 34 times bigger than the average public sector pension (£6,497).
dinary scheme members accrue benefits at a rate of 1/60th to 1/80th, while the standard accrual rate for directors is 1/30th.
cut
e at which workers build up pension benefits - the lower the bottom number, the better the pension deal.
al Retirement Age (NRA) for directors of FTSE 100 firms is 60, with three times as many directors able to retire at 60 than 65.
ns i
pe
mon NRA for ordinary scheme members is 65, and this is expected to rise further for most public and private sector workers.
blic pu ons
ur membership details
ssues. You can ring the branch office or you can now update your details on-line by going to UNISON website If you have never used the ʻmy detailsʼ option before, you will need to register at
b280ee89ff4c27a19dfaba5ecaa2ca26/unison 1/ and will need your membership number to register.
Y AND FIGHT FOR YOUR PENSION or the branch office
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r correct UNISON membership details so that we can keep you updated on LGPS, and for when we ballot for
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rob the poor feed the rich
It's not hard to understand government thinking...
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continued from front page
attack on our pensions in its tracks. We need to be clear that an assault on pensions is a pay-cut. Our pensions are our deferred wages for the future. They are not a 'perk' - they are part of our salary for when we finish work. So even if you are young worker and retirement is very distant thought, the attacks are still a pay-cut now for your future 'wages' in the form of your pension. For all these reasons Unison will soon be balloting all members to democratically decide whether to take action over pensions. All members should vote YES. Unison and the other trade unions have been negotiating for months to preserve our pensions. We recognise that any decision for action is not taken lightly and - as all members expect - that we exhaust all other negotiated means before advocating industrial action. Unfortunately negotiations have achieved very little and the scale of the cuts to our pensions means there is no alternative but to ballot our members. We expect - and demand - that all members will take Unison's advice to vote YES.
privileges for themselves, whilst clawing back the crumbs they pay the rest of us and attacking our jobs, services and futures. A Cabinet stuffed with millionaires and subsidised to the hilt has no conception of the struggle to live that is the experience of millions. The issue of pensions is therefore about dignity, respect and basic survival in our later life. It is about our ability to have an enjoyable retirement for ourselves, our friends and our families. The 2011 General Strike will also be about making history; alongside our brothers and sisters in the other unions it will be about ordinary people getting off our knees and standing up for our future. Like other periods of industrial action it will be an event to be proud of taking part in, and a mark of shame for those who do not. Every member and every union rep therefore needs to get behind building the biggest possible YES vote. We really are in a fight of our lives for a decent standard of living in our retirement.
If you are not in Unison or another union ask yourself this: are you really going to go into Being in a union means to give a collective work - or worse still, scab - whilst your voice for all workers and - at the very least - to colleagues around fight on your behalf? preserve our current conditions. If we cannot Some people may understandably feel they achieve this by negotiation it must be by cannot afford to strike - but can you really action - or sit back and watch ourselves, our afford not to, especially given that further families and our friends suffer. attacks are in the pipeline?
YOUR UNION
The government lives in a world very, very distant from the experience of ordinary working people and our families. They do not live in the same communities as us; they do not send their children to the same schools; they do not use the NHS or go to the same holiday destinations. They reserve perks and
The time to join a union and to stand-up with other public sector unions and workers is now. We will rarely have in our lives as great an opportunity as this to stand proudly together and use our collective power to shape our future for ourselves. United we stand, divided we fall.
Contact us:
Please be aware that the deadline for applying for the Unison Xmas children's party is Oct 3rd. Contact Lynne Owen on 07790004743or email lynneowen.suss@hotmail.co.uk
Christmas Party
Vote YES for action
A warning to all union members about insurance companies. More and more often, insurance companies are trying to deal directly with people who have been injured, or persuade them to use one of the insurer始s selected law firms. In Thompsons始 long experience insurers always under-settle cases where union lawyers are not involved. Your union lawyers are interested in getting you the maximum compensation for your injury, while insurers want to pay out as little as they can get away with. Make sure you speak to Unison first about any legal advice.
Unison Office The Guildhall Swansea SA1 4PE 01792 635271
unison@swansea.gov.uk
Joint Branch Secretaries: Nicky Symons & Mike Davies Unison has over 100 trained union reps throughout the council, schools and FE colleges. We will advise, support and represent you collectively and individually on issues from sickness, disciplinaries to legal matters inside and outside the workplace. If you need advice or representation please contact the Senior Steward(s) for your department below or go to your workplace steward. Alternatively please contact the branch office.
Environment Ian Alexander - 07584 505793 Tony Dearden - 07971 121533 Pat Lopez - 07584 505792 Social Services Alison Bell - 07941 757853 Bill Williams - 07557 560092 Resources Gareth Parry - 07584 341240
Sports & Social website: www.suss.me.uk
Education Chris Bell - 07967 551025 Karen Verallo - 07771 922985 Regeneration/Housing John Llewellyn - 07557 560093 Roger Owen - 07941819229 Clive Williams - 01792 534060 Gower College Ron Job - 07963 454041
www.unison.co.uk
This newsletter is produced by the City and County of Swansea Unison Branch. Any letters, comments or suggestions for articles should be posted to the branch address or emailed to Unison@swansea.gov.uk. Correspondence is not guaranteed to be published and contents may not necessarily reflect Unison policy.