Bratbaak - as far as I am aware there can be no changes to our current pension scheme except by an act of parliament. In fact this works against us to a certain extent, because if we as emplyees said "lets increase our contributions by x% to help the fund" we couldn't.
Is what you and TaD are alluding to is a new pension for bands 1-3 units i.e close the scheme to new entrants at these units only?
I doubt this could happen as these people would have to be employed on different contracts to Band 4/5 units and when you join NATS you don't know where you are being posted. I'm looking at this purely from an ATCO point of view here.
What could (and probably will) happen if we don't stand together on this, is a new, worse scheme for new entrants (and all those that joined post 2001 - dates might be wrong) will be introduced.
Then any moves / promotions / postings will be dependant on you joining the new scheme.
Plus in X years time when the new-schemies outnumber the old-schemies, any pay deals will be split along the lines of New= RPI+ 5% Old = RPI. Plus I can imagine there will be a bung to buy back 6 days leave - which the new guys will accept and we'll lose out and so on and so on.
So its not just the pension at stake.
Anyway I seem to have gone off topic in my own post! Sorry about the wall of text.
