This letter to the UK newspaper The Independent in early April, is the kind of small straw that the pilots should be keeping a record of. It beautifully states the problem that they have and shows the destruction of pensions across industry lines and governments. The more of these small items that they can collect - and generate - then they will raise the profile to the British public and perhaps, just perhaps, start to humiliate the Board and shareholders. If they can prove how the previous Board got away with the robbery, then it may be possible to convince this lot to put it back. Gordon Brown's dirty hands not withstanding. It says it all in 220 words.
Sir: May I add to the letters responding to your leading article (29 March) on public-sector pensions. When I joined local government in 1971, all staff over 18 were required to join the Local Government Pension Scheme. It was a non-negotiable condition of service that we do so, as was the condition that we pay 6 per cent of our salary into it. There was no choice about joining the scheme, nor about the contributions. Nor were we allowed to join any other scheme instead. If I had refused to join the scheme, my contract of employment would have ended.
In exchange, I was promised the pension deal outlined by Unison. By the 1980s the Thatcher government decided that this was restrictive and all employees should have the choice of joining a private scheme, even to transfer their previous contributions to it. In common with most employees, I stayed where I was.
This meant I was still entitled to the pension deal outlined by Unison. I have kept my part of the deal, the deal which I had no choice but to accept, for over 30 years. It is insulting enough that the pension promise is being broken; that local government staff have been singled out in this way, when teachers and civil servants have not, makes it more so.
JOANNE ASTON