TUC demands action over pensions crisis

Sunday, 11 September 2005 12:00 AM

The government must "take on" employers and press them to take action over Britain's looming pensions crisis, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said.

Speaking on the eve of next week's TUC conference, the union's general secretary Brendan Barber warned that just one in ten employees would be in an occupational pension scheme by 2025 unless action was taken.

Mr Barber praised the decision of ministers to establish the Pensions Commission under chair Adair Turner, who will address TUC delegates in Brighton on Wednesday.

But the TUC boss insisted "radical solutions" were still needed to deal with the "collapse of decent pensions" in the private sector.

"Voluntarism or even expensive incentives will not work - compulsion must be introduced," Mr Barber said.

The TUC claims half of salary related pensions closed to new entrants between 2000 and 2003 and that two-thirds of final salary schemes are no longer open to new members.

The union also alleges that despite cutbacks to employee pension schemes, the UK's top 400 directors share pension assets of an "astonishing" £1 billion.

Mr Barber said evidence the TUC had published showed "just how little boardrooms have shared in pensions sacrifices" and said it should mean that directors spoke "with no moral authority" in the pensions debate.

Urging the government to compel employers to contribute to pensions for their employees, Mr Barber said: "Only radical solutions can work, and ministers must start preparing the ground now for the big changes that are required."

"In particular they are going to have to take on the bulk of the employer lobby, and tell them that they cannot continue to walk away from their responsibility to contribute to pensions."

Meanwhile, the TUC will press the government to repeal laws that stop workers from striking in support of others, the BBC reports.

Commentators say the government is likely to resist the campaign to change the law, which follows the unofficial strike staged by British Airways staff in support of workers sacked by the airline's catering firm, Gate Gourmet.

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