Apologies to butt in, but the reason your pension deficit is crap is that you seem to have crap pension fund managers!
I have done no research into your situation and have not read the bulk of the preceding pages, but, at the risk of being flamed --
1) Who are your fund managers, or is the fund operated internally?
2) Does anyone (IE you folks at the coalface) get a say in how the fund is administered?
3) If you do have a representative what does he/she say? Does he/she have any input into investment decisions?
4) If you don't have a representative, why not?
5) What are the managers' fees?
As someone who has threatened to strike to protect my own pension, you have all my sympathy.
Fortunately my pension gurantees me 66 percent of a three-year averaged gross when I retire. The fund is in surplus but they have started cutting back annual increases to exisiting pensioners.
Seriously, this a fight worth fighting.
Best wishes.