Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) Executive Induction

Today I went on an induction to the LAPFF Executive following my election as Joint Vice Chair.

I used to be on the LAPFF Executive in 2013/2014 and it is good to be back.

LAPFF represents 80 UK Council pension funds and 6 Collective investment pools with asserts worth some £250 billion.

Some 4 million people have paid into UK Council pension funds.

Last week I represented LAPFF at the Sports Direct AGM and on Thursday I will be in Dublin for the Ryan Air AGM. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you tell me what employees can do who have Defined Benefit schemes.

The employers are trying to shut it down and want employees to move to Defined Contributions.

A lot of companies and organisations are doing this, they are in consultation.

The CEO has a £300,000 pension, but the workers are already on average earnings, will see their pension benefits limited. Why this injustice and unfairness?

Can you advise what people can do? The unions are in bed with management.

The CEO since being appointed, have seen profits fall. The employees are having their pensioned wacked. Now they say the pension contributions are a burden they cannot bear.

The Unions have let us down, when there were working changes a few years. So I don't trust them.

Any advise?

John Gray said...

if you think that unions are in "bed" with management then you might as well surrender your pension to your highly paid boss. Unions are not perfect but the only ones who can stand up to management. It is difficult but perfectly possible to stop companies closing their DB schemes. UNISON has done it. My branch has done it. You need to join a union and collectively take on your employer.

Anonymous said...

It is n't a general union like Unison. It is an organisation specific union.

Does that make any difference?. The company and union made a joint statement.

Apparently they negotiated. They said they would pay a few thousand in compensation.




John Gray said...

Is the union affiliated to the Trades union congress? If not then people should join one specific to their industry rather than a "staff association".

Unison have not not won all their battles with pensions. Some employers are in genuine crisis and it is clear from their accounts that if they don't cut costs then the company will fold and staff will lose their jobs and it will default on its pension obligations. That will mean that existing pension savings will transferred into the Government backed Pension Protection Fund. Which safeguards existing pensions but still mean significant cuts for those who have not retired yet. Equally some companies can afford to pay and the unions should take them on (if they have the support of its members).