Secretary of the University of London branch of the IWGB Catherine Morrissey has written to senior members of the University regarding the planned changes to the SAUL pension scheme.

See Catherine’s email below:

Dear All

I am writing on behalf of IWGB members at the University of London, and in support of all members of the SAUL pension scheme.

We understand that negotiations are currently ongoing between employers and the unions over potential changes to the scheme.

The majority of SAUL members are low-paid University employees, who have seen years of real-term pay cuts. It is unacceptable that their pensions should suffer as a consequence of:

a) a valuation which is extremely subjective, and which is merely a snapshot, not a prediction of the long-term viability of the scheme;
b) the extensive contribution holiday taken by the employers in the 1990s;
c) a breach of faith from the previous negotiations, whereby members who were keeping the final salary scheme signed up to a new deal on the basis that that would be preserved in the future.

The IWGB will be calling on its members to reject any proposed changes to the scheme that remove the final salary link and which do not substantially increase the employer contribution. We will also be calling on other unions to do the same.

It is vital that employers and their representatives recognise the human cost of their decisions, and also the strength of feeling among employees who feel that they are facing a further pay cut, this time to a retirement income which they had been previously encouraged to believe they could depend on.

Yours

Catherine Morrissey
Secretary, University of London IWGB
https://iwgb.wordpress.com/