Commenting on the latest offer from the government over pensions, Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Mark Serwotka said:
“Any new offer is always welcome but the latest concessions are only marginal and would still force public servants to pay more in and work longer for less in retirement.
“Effectively ministers are saying they will only raid pensions by slightly less than they were planning to.
“The money raised will still go straight to the Treasury to pay off the deficit, not into pension schemes that have been shown to be affordable now and in future.
“It is not true that people close to retirement age will be protected, because they will still be forced to pay up to three times as much for a pension already devalued by up to 20% by the imposed switch in indexation which we have challenged in the High Court.
“It should be remembered that this latest offer was only wrung out of ministers by the threat of mass industrial action on 30 November, and following our successful strike with other unions in June.
“We will look at the details to see how they affect our members, but we continue our plans to make 30 November the biggest strike we have ever seen.
“It remains to be seen if ministers are prepared to stop tinkering around the edges and start talking to us about the core issues of concern for millions of public sector workers.”
