Age Discrimination - Royal Mail

[Geezer]

Dear Colleagues

I have recently been contacted by a couple of members enquiring about the position of Royal Mail now that the default retirement age has gone.

I have contacted CWUHQ to see what the policy of Royal Mail now is in respect of members who wish to stay on after 65. The position is that Royal Mail have no specific policy at the moment so the situation is that any employee who wishes to stay on can do so and should have no pressure whatsoever applied to them to change their mind. I am told that for now Royal Mail are very wary of putting out anything in case it turns out to be discriminatory.

Ultimately any dismissal of someone over 65 has to be on the same grounds as for someone under 65, ie conduct , capability etc. Royal Mail have policies covering these matters and these policies will continue to apply to everyone whatever their age may be.

The Branch are aware that for some there is an understandable desire to leave at 65 ! For others there are financial worries etc that mean someone has to stay working for longer and of course all surveys are now showing that financial worries are assuming a much greater importance for older workers with many still paying off debts or mortgages etc. For others there is simply the desire to remain active and around colleagues and friends.

The bottom line is that if anyone comes under any pressure from rouge managers to try and ease or push someone out of the company please seek the help of the Branch or your local/area rep.

Please contact the Branch or your Area Rep if you have any queries.

Regards

****

[jockstrapp]

Unless you are on a piss easy walk or our rural guy why would anyone want to stay past 65?????????????????????????

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Unless you are on a piss easy walk or our rural guy why would anyone want to stay past 65?????????????????????????

I will have to my age bracket retirment age is 66..................

[blackadder]

personaly i think the age of retireing should be a lot higher, say 80. when the age of 65 was brought in hardly anyone lived that long. now days you could be retired at 65 and be on pensions for 30 years or more. is this right ? fact is anyone under the age of 50 today will be lucky to get a pension when they get to be a pensioner

[fishtank]

personaly i think the age of retireing should be a lot higher, say 80. when the age of 65 was brought in hardly anyone lived that long. now days you could be retired at 65 and be on pensions for 30 years or more. is this right ? fact is anyone under the age of 50 today will be lucky to get a pension when they get to be a pensioner

You're not supposed to retire and die blackadder or even worse die before you retire.
If people start to think they won't see any meaningful return on their pension they will simply stop paying into a pension and then the economy really will be screwed.
It's a delicate balance and we're almost at the tipping point now.
Economics and pension investment are far more complicated than people think,the idea that simply increasing the retirement age will resolve all of our pension woes is a bogus one.
Pensions need to be affordable...but they also have to be appealing otherwise people will look elsewhere to fund their retirement or worse...not even bother.

[blackadder]

a good point you made fishtank but the average age of the population of the u.k going up and up. just where will the state pension come from ?? as for saving, we all do that, yet as we see from our own pension they are changing what we getting to average salary