It ’ s all about protecting members and services

Protecting members and their welfare at work and beyond was a key theme of debates at UNISON’s higher education conference in Nottingham. On pensions, delegates condemned repeated attacks on university support staff’s retirement funds – particularly attempts to end their defined benefit schemes and move them onto worse  pensions. Conference stressed the need for a “whole-union approach” as individual universities try to pick off one branch after another. “Make no mistake, they are coming for you,” warned a delegate from Staffordshire University, where staff had been removed from the Local Government Pension Scheme to a commercial defined contribution pension. “It is a good scheme, compared to other rubbish schemes,” she said. But to move their pension, the university had hived off the workers to an arms-length private company so they were no longer university employees. The move meant that the university’s contribution to workers’ pensions dropped from 18% to 8%. To make up the difference and get the same pension as the LGPS provided, conference heard, would mean putting aside 40% of her take-home pay for the next 20 years. Conference vowed to mount a campaign on the issue, including working for the next Labour manifesto to include a commitment to support defined benefit schemes. Privatisation was another key issue in debates. Conference welcomed recent successes at King’s College London, the School of Oriental and African Studies in the capital and t...
Source: UNISON Health care news - Category: UK Health Authors: Tags: Article News 2019 Higher Education Conference outsourcing pensions privatisation Source Type: news