Category: Pensions News

Unilever staff begin rolling pension strikes

Consumer goods giant Unilever today faced the start of a series of rolling strikes across England and Wales. A number of walk-outs have been organised at various Unilever facilities over the next week and a half. Reuters reported that the strikes began today at a Warrington detergent factory, Colman’s mustard factory in Norwich and the [...]

January 18, 2012 | 0 Comments More

ACA warns of collapse in private sector pensions

The Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) has issued a stark warning of the widening gulf between the quality of public and private sector pension provisions. The body has observed what it describes as a “seismic collapse” in private sector pensions in comparison to the arrangements in place for public sector workers, the result of the [...]

January 3, 2012 | 0 Comments More

Pension schemes’ deficits at new high

The UK’s collective private sector final-salary pension deficit was at a new high in November, according to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF). The Fund said that even though the value of assets held by the scheme are up, with assets up 0.7 percent in November over October and rising by 5.9 percent since November 2010, [...]

December 13, 2011 | 0 Comments More

Unions lose challenge of CPI use

A High Court ruling has said that the government’s switch from use of the Retail Prices Index (RPI) to the generally lower Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to figure yearly cost-of-living increases for public sector pension payment increases is lawful. The decision means that in the future, annual increases in payments to pensioners will be lower [...]

December 2, 2011 | 0 Comments More

Pension strikes disrupt schools, not immigration

Services were reported to be disrupted across England as public sector workers went out on strike to protest government pension reforms, with courts, schools and hospitals among those operations seeing employees not showing up for work, but at least one warning by the government seeming not to have materialized as airports reported few or no [...]

November 30, 2011 | 0 Comments More

Pension plans sign infrastructure investment agreement

The National Association of Pension funds (NAPF) and the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) have signed a memorandum of understanding with the government that will make it easier for pension funds to invest directly in UK infrastructure projects. The memorandum is a move by the government to interest pension funds in helping pay to build needed [...]

November 28, 2011 | 0 Comments More

Unite votes to join pensions strike

Another union has voted to join a strike scheduled for 30 November to protest public sector pensions reforms by the government. Unite, the UK’s largest union, which represents a wide spectrum of public sector workers and represents around 1.5 million members, voted by a three-to-one margin to walk out later this month, along with 15 [...]

November 17, 2011 | 0 Comments More

More unions take pensions strike votes

More unions have voted to join a national strike scheduled for 30 November to protest reforms for public services pensions schemes that would see employees paying more into their schemes, working longer before retirement and seeing yearly cost-of-living increases once they retire figured by an altered formula that would likely give them smaller raises. The [...]

November 15, 2011 | 0 Comments More

Unite, Treasury dispute pensions figures

In the ongoing dispute between the government and unions over pension reforms, Treasury has denied union accusations that it is misrepresenting the amount of payouts pensioners will receive under the proposed reforms. Last week, Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, claimed that some pensioners will see higher pension payouts under the reforms than [...]

November 8, 2011 | 0 Comments More

Unison votes to strike over pensions

Despite a warning just yesterday from the government that it will pull back an offer for changes to pension reforms if a strike planned for the end of the month go forward, trade union Unison has voted to strike on 30 September against the government reforms to public pension schemes that would see employees and [...]

November 3, 2011 | 0 Comments More