Thursday 8th February

Pensions, pensioners and elder care

“What will you do about the position of those of us who are heading for retirement or who have responsibility for older relatives and close friends.”

Norman – retired member

UCU has large numbers of members who will soon be retired. We also have a valuable group of retired members. This is an important issue.

Firstly, we should do everything in our power to defend the value of existing pensions in the USS and TPS pensions schemes. They have been under attack for some time and whilst we succeeded, for example, in defending TPS benefits for existing staff through the threat of strike action, we did not fully protect the benefits of future members of the scheme. We will need to be ready to threaten similar action if either of the two schemes seek to attack benefits.

Secondly, we should join with other trade unions and lobbying groups to support the wider campaigns for fair treatment for pensioners on state pensions, transport benefits, social services, including on access to and fees for residential and nursing homes. We should continue to affiliate to the National Pensioners Convention and continue our excellent work there.

Thirdly we should support the Heyday (Age Concern) judicial review on the new age regulations seeking to challenge UK Government’s misinterpretation of whether there should be an assumed retirement age of 65 and seek to more generally challenge through negotiations and where necessary legally, all age discrimination.

Fourthly we should seek to enforce the new rights which begin in April 2007 for employees to ask for flexible working and time off for elder care. Employees who are carers for elders get a new to request flexible working from 6th April 2007. The Work and Families Act 2006 brings the rights of carers responsible for elders into line with parents of children under six and disabled children under 18.

We are about to launch a national UCU survey next week on our members needs which will be followed by setting negotiating goals for branches and LAs.

Finally we should recognise the potential role our pensioner members can play within the union. There is a wealth of experience and knowledge – and time. We should draw more on our retired members for support in campaigns outside the workforce – some are involved in the ESOL campaign for example. That role will be better recognised if, where members want them, we have retired members branches within UCU.