Sorry for late reply, but birthday and guinness will always take priority!!
Fit to Burst
No i'm not saying I would accept a 15 year deal either...what I said was that it would make it look a lot more appealing to the membership as your entire pay cheque is then pensionable. If I was told choose one or the other, i'd probably choose the 15 year pay deal yes, especially in the current climate where we're being told to expect nothing better than RPI for the foreseeable future, so again obviously RPI+0.5 becomes around about half a percent more appealing!!!
The point I was making was that management spout on about having our best interests at heart, when it is blatantly obvious they don't...why would they, they've got everything to gain and nothing to lose from offering the cap instead of the pay deal!!
And Gonzo
AFAIK The management cannot be
told what to do by the trustees unless the scheme is in deficit, they can only be advised. And the advice when the scheme is in surplus (as we've heard before) is to pay less. Now when it becomes apparent that there may be a problem in the future (as happened in about 2004/05) and even though the scheme is in surplus (hence the trustees will still "advise" that they can pay less if they want because of this surplus) I would say its extremely poor management to actually take this advice!
They could have turned round and said, "I understand you're advising me that I
can pay less, but as it's going to be in trouble we'll pay what we should". I've also said both at my briefing and on here that that probably wouldn't have made much difference to the position we're in now but it has two effects:-
1) it makes the difference in the amount required to pay a lot less (i.e. if the company are used to paying 30% (which equates to about £90m if my maths are correct) then going up to paying 40% means they only have to find an extra £30m, rather than having to go from 20% to 40% and the £60m+ we're told now, and
2) it makes it look to the staff that at least the management have made some sort of effort to save the scheme as well and hence makes the staff a bit more on side when our union say this is the only way forward. I'm sorry, but one other "way forward" is for the company to pay what the scheme says they should be, and not what the trustees advise they should be!
Anyway, pub opens in 30 mins so i'm off!!
FB
