I know this is digressing slightly into the realms of pay awards and that this thread was split from that, but actually, the two an totally linked because of the RPI+0.5% pensionable bit of the pension deal.
We are likely to get even more shafted in pay talks if inflation drops further - just because headlne inflatin will drop, the fact of the matter is, the cost of a loaf of bread etc will not drop by the same amount. Since the last pay deal, we have seen prices in the supermarket etc shoot up at ridiculous rates. That is what we should negotiate to base our pay rise on - the difference between prices from the last pay award to the current day prices -
NOT headline inflation which will sell us short and actually make us worse off in real terms!!
back to the pensions -
eglnyt
Is it the best deal we could get ? Probably.
so you are willing to roll over for 'probably' not definately??
Radarspod
I'm still waiting for a Vote No advocate to tell me what the "real" figures are if there is any EVIDENCE that both the management and the NTUS have lied and presented facts and figures that are untrue.
I'm still waiting for a Vote Yes advocate (because the management lackey at the briefing is incapable of answering a serious question that is not on his little crib) to prove to me that the company
cannot afford to pay more than it will have to under this deal, as opposed to the fact that is is actually
unwilling to pay more. They are trying to sell this to us as the only possible way of solving the pension issue.
It is incumbent on management and the union to prove to us that this is the only way it will work.
When we continue to post profits, well in excess of the extra money the company would need to find if it paid for the pension itself, it is very difficult for me to accept that the company should not fork out more.
And before any "YES" man starts bleating on about the Credit Crunch (
), this deal/offer was done and dusted before the 'meltdown' properly started... therefore this blip in th eeconomy (which is cyclical) has nothing to do with the argument - so don't try throwing it into the melting pot now.
And don't even try to say it was done with the knowledge that there would be economic downturn, because we all know that NATS is not that financially astute nor capable of long term planning.... the very fact that our money moguls have 'only just discovered' SMART pensions goes to prove either gross incompetence or more likely given the comments made when it was mentioned to them - deliberate mismanagement of the companies money because it suited them to run down the pension fund as much as possible.