What about those in the military who served, as recently as the early/mid 70s, when there WAS no pension? Change happens, life changes - sometimes for the better (I assume the fire service didn't complain when the pension changed for the better when times were good?), sometimes for the worse - unions, rightly, fight for change in the form of improvement. But sometimes, change is unavoidable if we don't want our kids to be working until age 75. but we talk about change. In 1992 and 2004, the firefighters pension scheme was mooted for change and firefighters did quite well out of it - in 2004, many folk working within the more general employment field were allowed to be members, whereas previously, they weren't.
Under the pension arrangements of 2004, a firefighter with just 25 years' or more service could retire at age 50 with no actuarial reduction. A full pension was also paid to anyone with 30 years service and anyone who retired before "April 2013 aged 50 or older with 25 or more years service" was to be considered exempt from this change. So this isn't change that has been done on the hoof. This was planned as far back as 1992, and these changes were cemented and agreed as recently as 2004. It seems that despite accepting the changes then, now that the trigger has passed (April) the firefighters union is now simply wanting to have its cake
and eat it. Political agenda, anyone?
Many people bang on about the government being to blame.. but the cost at stake here dwarfs any political skullduggery. Has anyone considered the biggest change - greater life expectancy? The cost of the existing firefighters scheme in 2004 was 37.5% of pensionable pay over a typical career. This represented an increase (erm, 'change') of nearly 8% over the estimate of 34.75% which was estimated to be the case in 1998, and was largely attributable to the increase in life expectancy. This affects ALL pensions, not just the firefighters. Who do they expect to fund this? The pot of money isn't limitless. Mopardave, I respect the work you do, as do we all. But when you say that when people sign up to something, it "really should be honoured", does that extend to the agreement which the firefighters union decided to ignore in April, once it was triggered?
Edit:
Anyway.. change!
Armed forces leaders the best in Britain at managing change