UNISON activists have voted to give the union's negotiators the green light to continue discussions with government ministers on changes to public sector pensions.
Nationally
More than 250 key elected national, regional, rank and file activists met at UNISON's headquarters on 10 January to discuss the details of the proposals for the local government and health pension schemes.
General secretary Dave Prentis said: "UNISON is a democratic union, and in today’s consultation, our elected activists from every service group in the local government pensions scheme endorsed the framework proposals we have negotiated, paving the way for more in depth talks”.
"Our action on 30 November got ministers back to the table, since then we have made some real progress. No contribution rises in local government until 2014 will be a real boost for many families that are hard hit by the pay freeze, and struggling to cope”. Negotiations on the local government scheme are due to run until April 2012.
Locally
we have received a request sent to all Branch Secretaries of Local Government Branches from Salford City UNISON asking Branches to consider agreeing a motion to call for a Special Conference of the Local Government Service Group to consider the policy of the Service Group in relation to the Local Government Pension Scheme.
Salford City are concerned that the decision taken by the Service Group Executive on 10th Jan endorses an agreement that;
“guarantees an increased retirement age and accepts the transformation of our Final Salary Pensions Scheme into one based on a Career Average. We are further concerned that despite delaying any contributions increases until 2012, the agreement does nothing to guarantee against increased contributions beyond that date. We believe the decision threatens the unity that existed on November 30th by placing UNISON at odds with other unions not prepared to enter into agreements at this stage. In our view this issue is serious to warrant a Special Local Government Conference so that representatives from all branches can discuss and debate the way forward”.
Our Branch Committee considered this request at its February meeting and decided we should support Salford City’s call for a Special Local Government Conference on Pensions to allow all Branches to let their member's views be known.
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