Britain's biggest trade union stands accused of 'vindictive and spiteful' discrimination against a group of 350 pensioners over its refusal to up their payouts. A petition has been raised on behalf of the affected former employees of Unite the Union, who have an average age of 80, two-thirds of whom are women and include many bereaved widows.
The petition states that the pension increases had to be 'directly approved by the general secretary'. One of the members is 73-year-old Dave Marsh from Salford, who was a union official based in Manchester from 1977 until he took voluntary redundancy in 2005.
He is still a 'pensioner trustee director' of the scheme but also one of the people affected. He said: “From the age of being an apprentice in the late 1960s I have fought injustices all my life.
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“But I never thought I would be saying that one of the greatest injustices I’ve had to fight in these 50 years is against my own union. Many of the pensioners affected are retired female administration staff who spent their careers helping the union fight workplace injustice, and now they're behaving like this." The petition posted on the Change.org website has topped 120 signatures.
Its post says: “Help stop UNITE the Union discriminating against 350 pensioners average age 80 and bereaved widows. Yes, this is unbelievably true.” It appealed for people to sign the petition so it could be sent to the general secretary of the TUC, Paul Nowak, to investigate and ‘put an end to this deliberate act against people who have worked for the union most of their lives’.
“These pensioners rely on a pension increase directly approved by the general secretary [of Unite] and executive council, but shamefully they have refused such an increase, even though the pension scheme has a £60million surplus,” it continued. “Any increase would cost the union not a penny because it would come from the pension funds.
"In February, the general secretary refused a £3 per week increase of which two-thirds of the 350 are female. It's shameful and heartbreaking, so please sign the petition and send it to all your contacts. Who would have thought the biggest union in the UK can act in such a vindictive and spiteful manner against former trade unionists?"
Documents compiled by the actuary running the pension scheme and seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) appear to confirm the pension fund would be unaffected by an increase.
Hilary Salt, of the Salford company First Actuarial, wrote: “The latest actuarial funding update at September 30 2021 and the more recent funding tracker show that the scheme is now in surplus…this surplus is greater than the actuarial cost. I would advise that if the trustee decided it would pay a discretionary increase at this level, that [the scheme] would not need to seek additional contributions from the union.”
The union is an amalgamation of several different unions which came together under one umbrella in 2013 as Unite along with their respective pension schemes. Mr Marsh said that the way the pension scheme is constituted, increases for former members of the former electricians and engineering unions pre-1997 are at the discretion of the general secretary of Unite and the executive council.
The elderly 350 pensioners have received rises of 2.5 per cent in 2018 and 2019, but a request for a further rise now in the midst of the cost of living crisis, has been turned down by Unite. Other documents seen by the LDRS show that Unite members who are part of the scheme post-1997 have received regular annual increases, amounting in one case to 193pc since 2001. Over the same time span, the affected 350 have received just 5pc.
However, a letter (also seen by the LDRS) to Alex Ryan, head of pensions at the Unite Pension Scheme, from Gail Cartmell, executive head of operations at Unite, dated February 10, 2023, said: “Whilst the union is sympathetic to scheme members affected by this issue, it cannot agree to either option [for an increase] outlined in your letter at the current time.”
Unite and the TUC have been contacted for comment.
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