Dances with wolves I dont have it in for the Guild, but being one of Thatchers children I do have it in for unions and deluded fools like bexil atco535 and 250kts who insist on stamping their feet whilst sticking their heads in the sand.
Britains final salary schemes, recently analysed by two leading economists, are showing a shortfall of about 160billion. Which means they will have to put between 10-40 billion a year into the schemes for the next ten years if they want to fill the gap. These companies have been operating in the private sector for decades NATS only a few years. Nobody said the NATS scheme was in trouble but some time in the future it probably will be.
If British companies are to carry the burden of these expensive schemes, the cost will reduce the amount of investment they are able to make therefore harming their competitiveness in the international market place.
Deloitte and Touche estimate the black hole in the FTSE 100 firms was 75billion meaning many staff are facing the prospect of retiring on less than they hoped. Until recently many firms have closed their funds to new members but allowed existing members to carry on. However a number of large companies such as Rentokil and the CO OP have announced they are to close their schemes to existing members as well.
The reason for these funds falling into the red is simple we are living longer.
This coupled with falling returns in investments and Gordon Brown removing tax relief on dividends means these final salary pension schems are too costly no matter what job you ATCO or burger flipper. Unless of course, as has been previously pointed out, you are an MP and in which case your pension scheme is sacrosanct.
NATS or non NATS, management or lacky, it dosn't matter its a fact life the whole country has a pension problem and talk of strikes and unrealistic demands of companies aint gonna solve it. I sincerely hope the NATS pension scheme carries on for many years to come. But something tells me I will be back on PPRUNE at some time in the future saying I told you so.
I am off to the sun for a few weeks bye bye.