retirement-1You may have already seen the announcement on the UoL intranet (https://intranet.london.ac.uk/6395.html) that the SAUL Negotiating Committee has agreed a set of proposed changes to the scheme.

The key elements of this are the closing of the final salary section of SAUL, the increase in employer contributions from 13% to 16% (employee contributions will stay at 6%), and the move to a 75ths accrual rate (from the current 80ths accrual rate).

This could definitely have been worse – the employers are contributing more, and a 75ths accrual rate is an improvement BUT this is counterbalanced by the closure of the final salary scheme (which during the last changes they promised would be preserved!)

As I think was mentioned in our last email, the justification for any of these changes is very spurious – we are losing our final salary pensions to pay for a ‘deficit’ largely caused by the employers’ past pension holidays.

Furthermore, the employer will still be paying less as a percentage towards SAUL than they contribute to USS.

As a consequence, we’re urging members to reject these proposals.

So what happens next?

  • UNISON and Unite are currently recommending these changes to their members
  • If they reject them, then there will be a ballot for strike action – in this case the IWGB will also ballot its members and recommend industrial action
  • If they accept them (we will know this by the end of May) there will then be a 60-day consultation period for all SAUL members, regardless of union, probably beginning in July – we would urge all IWGB members to take part in this and to reject the current proposals

We’ll be discussing this at the next branch meeting on 22 May (12.30, IoE), but do just get back to us (uol@iwgb.org.uk) if you have any questions or suggestions regarding this.