What would it take for a YES vote?

[cloherty1976]

Separate pension schemes will just divide the workforce, which is what RM ultimately wants as it reduces the union's power. We need to stand together and fight for new starters as much as anyone.

But we have always had different pension schemes , when I started I was in the POSS scheme section b whereas a significant amount of fellow workers were in the civil service scheme, than in 1987 Royal Mail introduced the section c scheme POPS. Than when the final salary scheme was closed in 2008 individuals were forced to go into an unagreed scheme the DC scheme.

We are close to having for the first time in my 35 year Royal Mail career one pension scheme , the fact Royal Mail want it is opening doors up to and including Downing Street and I expect something within weeks not months.

In the interim we are up lifting individual who have done 5 years of which is over half of those in the current DC scheme.

Now let’s be clear I am doing members meetings in different delivery offices and doing one this morning , people who are in the DC scheme and POPS scheme need to understand that they will have to pay more pension contributions than they are currently under the new scheme as for POPs they will have to pay 6% on their first £3500 and for those in the DC they will have to pay 6% and only 5% current do so within the DC scheme.

Paying more will be a sticking point for many as I know a lot of people only pay 1%.
Rm pension is one of the best but what you don't mention is that if things go wrong and only someone with a crystal ball will be able to do this.
Markets go up and down like companies and with the best will in the world we don't know what's going to happen.
Talking to parliament will take years in my opinion but we shall see on that one
Also over the next 20 years I expect the pension will change many times
To me you will on find out what it's like when you draw your pension and even then things may change

[panch1989]

So it's two pensions for all. First 5 years you won't be on the one pension for all that the cwu promised to sort out. This agreement is full of holes.

[MRSCOOP]

Breaking News : Inflation 3% again for January, making our new pay deal look poor yet again,especially whoever agreed 2% increase for April 19

[cloherty1976]

Breaking News : Inflation 3% again for January, making our new pay deal look poor yet again,especially whoever agreed 2% increase for April 19

You would expect inflation to fall over the next year though.

[Martin Walsh]

Breaking News : Inflation 3% again for January, making our new pay deal look poor yet again,especially whoever agreed 2% increase for April 19

Tell me how many big employee paid £2.6% or 5% last year ?? It did not happen. Royal Mail started off with an offer of £250 one of lump sum. Now a full timer with Delivery Supplement will be £21.80 per better of with the 5% and of course you want more but I have to say I have done 8 meetings with members over this deal since last week and on Pay they believe we have done well.

I get the issue with 2.0% next April but it is also with a further reduction in the working week which is worth 2.6%. Royal Mail are obsessed with not having the first wave sorted into frames and believe if this was introduced it would save 25 minutes per walk in each office. Add to this that PDA actuals can monitor and individual on delivery , the route they go , where they stop and when they log off. So a reduction in the working does have an impact on pay rises.

[elteleltel]

Might be a reduction in the working week but we've been told we will start 12 mins later each day , same workload expected therefore no actual gain except more pressure to get finished on time.

[Celgar]

Might be a reduction in the working week but we've been told we will start 12 mins later each day , same workload expected therefore no actual gain except more pressure to get finished on time.

12 minutes later per hour of SWW. But if the trials are not successfully implemented, and considering what they want to do I don't think their ideas are possible to do, then the SWW supposedly won't happen. Just have the later times from the LAT then which supposedly don't affect all offices.

[Celgar]

Breaking News : Inflation 3% again for January, making our new pay deal look poor yet again,especially whoever agreed 2% increase for April 19

Tell me how many big employee paid £2.6% or 5% last year ?? It did not happen. Royal Mail started off with an offer of £250 one of lump sum. Now a full timer with Delivery Supplement will be £21.80 per better of with the 5% and of course you want more but I have to say I have done 8 meetings with members over this deal since last week and on Pay they believe we have done well.

I get the issue with 2.0% next April but it is also with a further reduction in the working week which is worth 2.6%. Royal Mail are obsessed with not having the first wave sorted into frames and believe if this was introduced it would save 25 minutes per walk in each office. Add to this that PDA actuals can monitor and individual on delivery , the route they go , where they stop and when they log off. So a reduction in the working does have an impact on pay rises.

Not sorting the first wave into the sorting frames is a ridiculous idea and will actually take more time. You would either have to work from two bundles or feed the first wave into the bundles of the rest of the mail which would be a right pain. This idea is probably the main reason to vote no to the as agreement. CWU must have been on the weed when they agreed to this bit. Unless they realised it wasn't possible to implement.

[fishtank]

We are close to having for the first time in my 35 year Royal Mail career one pension scheme ,

The ambition to have one pension scheme for all isn't in itself much of an achievement, had we left things alone eventually everyone in Royal Mail would have been in one pension, the DC scheme. The real achievement would have been to provide a decent standard of living for all our pensioners. Will this CDC do that? I don't think so.

There still won't be any parity because my pension will be worth far more than someone with 30 years until retirement, those in the DC scheme now will still be the biggest losers at retirement.

For the first time in my career we are proposing a pension that doesn't give any guaranteed level of income even after retirement, that's shameful, that's embarrassing, that's nothing to crow about.

[Martin Walsh]

Fish I am the first to say that nothing will give the pension return that a DB scheme would. It is important that members understand all their service up to 31st March 2018 is safe.

The resolution is for any service post 31st March 2018. Now once you do not have a DB scheme than you are moving away from a guaranteed pension. The issue is whether you agree a collective pension which is what is on the table subject to government approval or possible amending the current DC scheme to allow collective status.

Now your right it Is targeted rather than guaranteed.Hilary Salt makes this clear but also provides what such a scheme can produce which is far better than the DC scheme which was the original proposal.

I also realise that many members will question why they are balloting on a pension scheme that has not yet been approved. However the reality if we did not than on 31st March the DB scheme will close and we would not have a pension scheme apart from the DC scheme. We would fall off a cliff. We all know that we could have gone on strike until the cows came home and we would not have forced Royal Mail to keep open the DB scheme and for them to pay an extra 600 million per year more than the annual profits into the DB scheme knowing that this would potentially increase under the next accrual.

The question is not whether the scheme is better than the current DB scheme it is not. It is whether this is a better scheme than what Royal Mail wanted and without doubt it is.

There is reality and there is fools gold and it is important when you make a decision you don't vote on the basis of something which you are never going to achieve.

[pickles10]

For the first time in my career we are proposing a pension that doesn't give any guaranteed level of income even after retirement, that's shameful, that's embarrassing, that's nothing to crow about.

I'v been in such a scheme for the last five years, Royal mails defined contribution scheme..

This battle should have been fought long ago not ignored and kicked into the long grass...what a shambles

[fishtank]

I'v been in such a scheme for the last five years, Royal mails defined contribution scheme..

This is very different to a DC scheme.
With a DC scheme you carry the risk through employment, then normally you buy an annuity which provides a guaranteed income. With this scheme you continue to carry that risk after retirement

[fishtank]

The question is not whether the scheme is better than the current DB scheme it is not. It is whether this is a better scheme than what Royal Mail wanted and without doubt it is.

Is it?
It's untried, untested, unstructured, unregulated and unknown and yet you're willing to bet your shirt on it?
Well not your shirt, you've got 35 years in a DB pension but lots of other shirts.

Explain this to me,

1.How does a scheme that's going to be top heavy with older full-time members sustain itself if the business becomes predominantly part-time with far fewer staff?

2) How can the pension protection fund apply to a pension that doesn't have a fixed value?

Bearing in mind Royal Mail will have no obligation to sustain this pension:

3) How high could active members contributions go to sustain the scheme?

4) How low could retired members pension go to sustain the scheme?

5) Isn't it possible you could be hit with the double blow of paying increased contributions all the way up to retirement and then find out you've got a reduced pension because the scheme has performed poorly?

[cloherty1976]

The question is not whether the scheme is better than the current DB scheme it is not. It is whether this is a better scheme than what Royal Mail wanted and without doubt it is.

Is it?
It's untried, untested, unstructured, unregulated and unknown and yet you're willing to bet your shirt on it?
Well not your shirt, you've got 35 years in a DB pension but lots of other shirts.

Explain this to me,

1.How does a scheme that's going to be top heavy with older full-time members sustain itself if the business becomes predominantly part-time with far fewer staff?

2) How can the pension protection fund apply to a pension that doesn't have a fixed value?

Bearing in mind Royal Mail will have no obligation to sustain this pension:

3) How high could active members contributions go to sustain the scheme?

4) How low could retired members pension go to sustain the scheme?

5) Isn't it possible you could be hit with the double blow of paying increased contributions all the way up to retirement and then find out you've got a reduced pension because the scheme has performed poorly?

Agree with all your points and have thought this for a long time.
I think pensions will soon be a thing of the past

[fishtank]

There's a little dishonesty going on when comparing this CDC scheme to Royal Mail's original DC option.
Of course the CDC option is better but that's primarily because Royal Mail are contributing 13.6% as opposed to an original 9% in the DC scheme but if they're willing to contribute 13.6% to the CDC scheme they would obviously have been willing to do this with the individual DC scheme, it makes no difference to them.

An individual DC scheme with an employer contribution rate of 13.6% and an employee rate of 6% with individual investment choice and the freedom to buy an annuity at retirement and have a pretty much guaranteed income? It would truly be one pension for all and although best case outcomes might not have been as good, it's a tried and tested pension without the threat of financial ruin 10 years after you f***ing retire when the ponzi scheme collapses.