Pension trustees take BT to court

[fishtank]

Pension trustees take BT to court
By JON REES
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BT's pension scheme trustees are taking the company and the Government to court in a case that will decide how much of BT's pension liabilities will be guaranteed by the State.
The High Court will be told on Tuesday that the Conservative government of 1984 pledged to stand behind three-quarters of its pension liabilities in the event of the company going bust - but the authorities have consistently refused to endorse the figure.
The Crown Guarantee was introduced when BT was privatised, but the precise figure has never been clarified. BT hopes that a ruling on the size of its pension liabilities will allow it to reduce its payments into the £40billion scheme, which has 340,000 members and a deficit of £7.4billion. A verdict is expected in October.

Under a plan to pay off the deficit over 17 years, BT has agreed to make emergency payments of £525 million this year, rising to £856million by 2025. In total it is currently paying £800million into the scheme each year.
The plan has not been approved by the Pensions Regulator, which flagged up 'substantial concerns' over the deal in the spring.

Meanwhile, BT has reached agreement with the Communication Workers Union on a pay deal that will see members get a pay rise worth three per cent each financial year through to March 2013.
The agreement comes after the CWU called off a strike ballot on legal advice.
BT had indicated to the union that it was preparing a legal challenge to the ballot on the grounds that the CWU was unable to supply workplace addresses for some of its members, believed to be engineers who worked from home. The union was advised that it would lose the court case. The TUC said the issue demonstrated the need to reform union legislation to take account of modern working practices.
Sarah Veale, head of equality and employment rights at the TUC, said: 'The strike laws are 20 years out of date. Whichever side you come from politically, these laws should fit the modern workplace so at the least they must be modernised.
'Modern companies like BT and the utilities bear no resemblance in working patterns to the same companies of old.

[guvenor]

so why dont our pension trustees take gvmnt and rm to court for stealing our monies from pay and not contribuiting
as per legaly obliged to.rem tories started pension hols for company (not staff ) because it was overfunded too rich
now please forgive me but if you go on holiday you are supposed to come back not 15 yrs later through progresive gvmts

[dvbuk55]

That 17 years repayment figure looks pretty familiar - somebody at leat is taking the pensions issue seriously.

[fishtank]

This "court case" has been talked about for years but was never pursued.
Now within the space of a few short weeks we have a Conservative-ish goverment,a very strange conclusion to the BT pay negotiations and suddenly the BT pension trustees wish to take the goverment to court....I wonder who the pension trustees are.

Well here are 3 for a start.

Donald MacDonald
Appointed: 1 May 1998. Donald MacDonald retired from the CWU in 2004. He had been the Union’s Telecom Recruitment Officer, and was formerly President of the Union. A Post Office and BT telecommunications technician for many years, he previously served as a Director of BT Quest Ltd (BT Qualifying Employee Shares Trust) as an employee representative. Donald is a member of the CWU and of UNITE (formerly the National Federation of Post Office and BT Pensioners), and Chairman of United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. He is a BTPS pensioner.

Bill McClory
Appointed: 1 September 1997. Billy McClory was employed by Post Office Telecommunications 1968-78, became a National Officer of CPSA, then NCU in 1984 and CWU in 1995. Responsible in the NCU for pension matters in the Post Office and BT, Billy was the lead officer on pension matters for the BT Unions 1990-97. He is a member of UNITE (formerly the National Federation of Post Office & BT Pensioners). He is also a member of The Pensions Regulator’s Investment Governance Group whose aim is to promote best practice in investment-related governance by occupational pension schemes.

Beryl Shepherd
Appointed 1st June 2009. Beryl Shepherd has been employed by BT since 1978 and is currently a member of the National Executive Committee of the Communication Workers Union. A position that she has held since 2002. Beryl is a Trustee of the National Communications Union Staff Superannuation Scheme (NCUSSS) and also a Trustee of the CWU. She is an active member of BTPS and a member of UNITE (formerly the National Federation of Post Office and BT Pensioners)’.

[dvbuk55]

Now just hang on a minute there ft - what you are saying is that the CWU, whilst there was Labour Government to whom they paid loads of wonga because they had a position of influence was, shall we say more than a little reluctant to rock the boat on behalf of its members, but now they have gone it's OK to make waves - well that could be good news for those who are hoping to have a pension when they retire BUT slightly concerning that the deficit was allowed to get so huge before any noise was made.

[belle smith]

so why dont our pension trustees take gvmnt and rm to court for stealing our monies from pay and not contribuiting
as per legaly obliged to.rem tories started pension hols for company (not staff ) because it was overfunded too rich
now please forgive me but if you go on holiday you are supposed to come back not 15 yrs later through progresive gvmts

The Goverment has never made an explicit crown gaurentee in repect of our pension scheme.

[Big Daz]

so why dont our pension trustees take gvmnt and rm to court for stealing our monies from pay and not contribuiting
as per legaly obliged to.rem tories started pension hols for company (not staff ) because it was overfunded too rich
now please forgive me but if you go on holiday you are supposed to come back not 15 yrs later through progresive gvmts

Because it was all legal.Therefore no case to answer in law.

[fishtank]

so why dont our pension trustees take gvmnt and rm to court for stealing our monies from pay and not contribuiting
as per legaly obliged to.rem tories started pension hols for company (not staff ) because it was overfunded too rich
now please forgive me but if you go on holiday you are supposed to come back not 15 yrs later through progresive gvmts

Because it was all legal.Therefore no case to answer in law.

It was more than legal daz it was illegal not to but as usual in these cases the law is an ass.
At the time of the pension holidays companies should have been forced to use these surpluses to establish a contingency fund for those times when things were not so rosy but as is always the case where greed and easy money are concerned it was much more desirable to simply add this money to your balance sheet and make your shareholders or in our case the goverment very happy....the majority of the major company profits that drove the boom in consumer spending in the 1990s were actually derived from savings in employer contributions to pension schemes.
At the time pension fund managers believed that the stock market only went one way and that pension funds could be more or less self-funding....so they started speculating,buying into nonsense companies with high share values and feck all assets instead of investing in safer bonds and property.Then along came a 3 year "bear market" and £200billion disappeared from pension assets.
The most ridiculous thought i will leave you with is this one...The "City" takes between £10-15Billion from pension funds every year in "consultancy fees".
It's a grand life if you can get your snout in the trough.