UNISONActive is an unofficial blog produced by UNISON activists for UNISON activists. Bringing news, briefings and events from a progressive left perspective.

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Public sector pensions under renewed attack‏

The right wing press today launched their propaganda campaign in support the government’s renewed attack on public sector pensions. Their main claim is the pensions of workers in the NHS, Teaching and the Civil Service are now too expensive due to the problems with government debt.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286597/Clegg-promises-action-Britains-18bn-year-public-sector-pensions.html
The government are obviously committed to create pensioner poverty, instead of creating a fair society, by forcing workers into a life of state hand outs instead of dignity in retirement they have paid for. Yesterday in a speech to the Institute for Government, Deputy Prime Minister Clegg sector said wheeled out the tired old claim of gold plated public sector pensions after claims in the Office for Budget Responsibility report that spending on them would increase from £4bn to £9bn by 2014/15.

We know that in the NHS for example a lot of the increase will not be down to the individual benefits but due to a large number of members moving towards retirement at that particular time. The rise in government debt is of course almost exclusively due to the role of the banks in collapsing the UK and global economy. It is grotesquely unjust to place the burden of government debt on the future pensioners who have spent a working life time dedicated to public service while bankers pay nothing.

Not only has the government been forced to borrow more to give to the banks, but it also created £220bn of ‘free’ money and gave it to them. Bankers have continued to speculate with that money, using it to increase bonuses to £6bn this year. There is a solution, if you can create £220bn of free money for bankers, then it is a very modest act to create £9bn in 2014/15 for our pensioners.

But of course governments’ use budget deficits for their own political motives, and this one is no exception. They want to impose pension poverty on public sector workers so that they can provide free money welfare for the banks who are threatening to bring our economy to its knees once again.