NASUWT: Another chapter in the sorry saga of pension changes
Friday, 16 December 2011
2:13 PM
The DfE has today announced its decision to press ahead with increasing the pension contributions of teachers and other public service workers from April 2012. Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union said:
"Choosing to announce the increase in contributions in the final hours before the national discussions on pension changes have concluded is unnecessarily provocative but regrettably such ill-timed announcements have been a feature this sorry saga.
"The increase in contributions is not to support the funding of the teachers' or other public service workers' pension schemes, it is simply to raise money for the Exchequer
" It is a wholly unjustified tax on teachers.
"The DfE statement seeks to minimise the financial impact by conveniently ignoring that these additional financial penalties follow the Chancellor's Autumn statement in which he announced a continuation of the pay freeze for a further two years.
"In the same statement, the Chancellor callously dismissed alternative strategies which would prevent the continuing misery of job loss, pay cuts and spiralling cost of living experienced by public and private sector workers."
ENDS
Ben Padley
Journalist
Campaigns and Communications
NASUWT,
Hillscourt Education Centre,
Rose Hill,
Birmingham.
B45 8RS
Tel: 0121 453 6150
www.twitter.com/nasuwtunion
www.twitter.com/Chris_K_NASUWT
www.twitter.com/benpadley1
www.facebook.com/nasuwt
Disclaimer: Press releases published on this page are from key opinion formers
who promote their organisation's activities by subscribing to a campaign site within
politics.co.uk. politics.co.uk does not endorse, edit, or attempt to balance the
opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases are wholly the responsibility
of the originating company or organisation.
Unions have hit out at proposals for pension contribution increases which will affect 2.5 million nurses, teachers and civil servants.
Teachers belonging to the largest teachers' union have voted to strike later this month.
Headteachers have voted for strike action for the first time ever later, but union chiefs say it is still "not too late" to resolve the public sector pensions impasse.
The coalition is coming close to claiming outright victory over trade unions after the bare bones of an agreement were reached in marathon talks yesterday.
A "generous offer" to unions which would preserve all public sector workers' accrued pension rights has been rejected by unions.
The government will remain "very firm" in the face of union strikes over public sector pensions, David Cameron has said.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude spoke on BBC1's Breakfast this morning, questioning the decision to strike while negotiations are in progress and branding the changes "perfectly reasonable".
A teachers' union is threatening to take the government to court over changes to pension plans.
If there's one thing ministers don't want, it's another disaster like the NHS reforms fiasco. Could the public sector pensions clash be the coalition's next humiliation?
The bruising process of reforming public sector pensions will not save the taxpayer any money, a respected economic think tank has argued.
Newsletter sign up