Defend YOUR pension Defend YOUR pension Stop the move to a divisive career average pension scheme. Report by Malcolm Povey for UCU EGM 22nd June 2011

Vote YES for action short of strike and YES for strike action.Employers impose vicious pension cuts ◦ On Tuesday 10th May the employers, using threats of legal action and bankruptcy against union negotiators, and using the casting vote of the “independent” chair, imposed their vicious proposals for the USS scheme. These include:- ◦ · Reducing pensions for everyone ◦ · Index-linking to CPI rather than RPI ◦ · Increasing retirement age ◦ · A divisive career average scheme for new starters ◦ · Making it cheaper to make over-50s redundant, ◦ · Treating staff who leave the scheme during their career as ‘new starters’ when they return. ◦ · Inflation capping

We need to resist We cannot accept this attack on our pensions. We already face a massive assault on pay and jobs. On pay, the employers have offered £100 per annum while RPI is around 5.0%. We are losing thousands of jobs in the sector, with job losses in almost every institution. To accept imposition of changes to USS without a fight sends a green light to the employers to keep attacking us. This would be fatal at a time when they and the Con-Dem government are determined to make us pay for their crisis.

The health of USS Despite the recent fall in the stock market, USS is in good health. The fund increased by £8.4bn in the year to March 2010, owing to abolition of the mandatory retirement age and changes in indexation. Payments into USS exceed current pension committments. The cuts are unnecessary. The employers are out to steal our pensions, cut their expenditure and make it cheaper to sack staff. The imposed changes risk new starters not joining USS, undermining the scheme and providing an excuse for future cuts.

Why we must reject two tiers UCU members who took strike action for two days in March did so in defence of our final salary pension scheme. Members knew, as UCU pointed out, that a pension based on average salary over a career means a worse pension. Members also knew that once a career average scheme was introduced for new starters, it wouldn’t be long before the employers exploited this divide and forced the career average scheme onto all of us. The employers pretend that career average schemes are ‘fairer’ because the low paid don’t subsidise the top earners, but the solution to this would be a cap on pensions above a certain salary level – not to impose reduced pensions on everyone. Would we accept a lesser scheme? Why should new starters? Two- tier schemes tend to become multi-tier, and members can find themselves forcibly transferred onto lesser terms for future contributions. In the Civil Service there are now four tiers! The employers will come back for more cuts every year.

Benefits + The Pensions section of the recent University of Leeds ‘digital booklet’ Benefits contains these words of comfort: “All staff have the opportunity to join a generous final salary pension scheme, which offers the following: A pension and tax free cash sum on retirement, linked to the level of your salary and service when you retire. Pensions which increase in payment in line with inflation.”

Inflation capping

Recommended next steps

Motion for EGM This General Meeting of Leeds University UCU notes that we are being consulted over the forms of action needed to defend our pensions. We note that any form of action short of strike which has a serious effect on University Activity is likely to result in the deduction of a full days salary by University Management. We have been warned of this twice in s to all members by the University Secretary and in the advice set out by the national employers’ body UCEA. The effective and successful strike action taken on the 22 nd and 24 th March needs to be built upon. We note that the current rate of inflation is already close to the cap on inflation protection to be imposed by the employer and that an inflationary period such as that experienced in the 1970s would almost wipe out our pensions altogether, given the employers’ cap. We further note that it would take months if not years of strike action before we lost the equivalent in pay to the detriment the employer intends to impose upon us. In the event of a positive outcome to the USS ballot being held between 20 th June and 14 th September, this branch is of the view that strike action will be necessary to bring the employer back to the negotiating table and to avoid the possibility of 100% deductions for action short of a strike.

Calendar ◦ National Strike Day over Pensions – June 30 th ◦ Picket lines at Leeds Met, Leeds College of Art and Leeds College – Leeds University UCU will be supporting our colleague’s picket lines ◦ March from Leeds Met Library, meet 1130 to Rally in City Square at 12, with speakers from UCU, NUT, ATL and PCS.