THE FUTURE of our pensions is one of the most worrying questions for
workers in Britain. People are living longer and both government and
private employers want to shift the cost on to working-class people’s
backs.
Roger Shrives
People worry – when they grow old will they face a future of poverty?
We haven’t seen such an onslaught on pension rights since before the
second world war.
Pensions are in reality deferred wages. In the last decade over two
million workers lost their rights to a decent occupational pension.
Private-sector bosses robbed their workers of nearly £19 billion from
their pensions between 1987 and 2001 by taking a contributions ‘holiday’
while stock prices were high.
After stocks and shares dipped, bosses saved another £4,000 per
worker per year by abolishing final salary schemes and increased their
profits by another £4 billion through cutting their own contributions.
Strikes have already taken place in some private sector workplaces
when workers found that the pensions they expected were under threat.
Now’s the time for a united TUC-led campaign against the threat to
pension rights in both private and public sectors.
The Socialist Party says
- No to ‘work till you drop’!
- Restore the link between pensions and wages!
- Give back all that has been taken away to those who paid in to
final salary schemes. - Restore to the private sector pension funds all the money that
the bosses robbed from them. - Unite the fight for a decent pension.
- For a one-day public sector strike in defence of pension rights
and against low pay and attacks on jobs.
