Pensions - if 68 was too late, then 69 is way out of line!

Post taken from the latest bulletin of the NSSN, the National Shop Stewards Network:



December 2011 - Watch on: http://youtu.be/FXJQKwNgXOI

Osborne’s Autumn Statement last Thursday, not only brought forward by ten years the new retirement age of first 68 and then 69 - it will be open-ended with it being regularly reviewed in line with life expectancy. This poses workers getting their state pensions into their 70's - and, because many occupational pensions use this age as a yardstick, workers will fear being forced to work until they drop for the full retirement benefits that they have worked and paid for.

In one fell swoop, Osborne has kicked away one of the main planks of the pensions deal that unfortunately some of the union leaders signed up to halt the mass public sector strikes of 2011 - strikes which culminated in 2 million workers walking out on N30.

That day of mass mobilisations in virtually every town and city two years ago was against the ConDem plans to make public sector workers work longer to get worse pensions yet pay more for them.

The NSSN and the fighting unions that we work with, opposed stopping the strikes in 2011. We lobbied the TUC Public Services Liaison Group in December 2011 to instead call for the massive N30 strike to be escalated into 2012 and broadened out to workers in the private sector.

We believe that the impressive strikes this autumn of teachers, college lecturers and workers, firefighters and probation workers, alongside on-going PCS action, shows that there is still massive potential for co-ordinated strike action against the brutal cuts, particularly on pay and pensions. We call on the TUC and the unions to organise an emergency General Council to plan mass joint action with the naming of a date for a 24 hour general strike in early 2014.

As a minimum, all those unions currently in dispute should immediately meet together to plan the mass action that can shake this government and force back their vicious attacks.

Rob Williams, NSSN National Chair

For the rest of the NSSN bulletin go to the NSSN website: http://wp.me/p2ECqx-C6