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London Magazine Branch

September 1999

New 'stakeholder' pensions could seriously affect the income you earn over your lifetime

 
         ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• Recruiting tips
   
• Fairness at Work
   
• Branch meetings
   
• September agenda
   
• Training courses
   
• Branch round-up
   
• Demonstration
   
• Meetings schedule
   
• Disabled members
   
• Countdown to ADM
   
   

YOUR pension is effectively part of your wages. Yet if we are not careful we could allow employers to cut our lifetime earnings - and with the government's blessing.

You may have heard of 'stakeholder' pensions. What you may not have heard is that employers and private pension companies could be doing very well out of them - at your expense.

At September's branch meeting Nic Cicutti, personal finance editor of the Independent on Sunday, will explain what we can do to safeguard our pension rights.

The government has made it clear that it will not restore the link between pensions and average earnings, abolished by the Tories.

Now New Labour wants to phase out the State Earnings Related Pensions Scheme (Serps) and introduce private ìstakeholderî pensions instead.

Although the government has said there will be a 'guaranteed minimum income' for pensioners (just how minimal?), this won't be a universal benefit: it will be means-tested, and people will lose out through not applying for it.

Improved regulation of the pension industry is promised, but stakeholder pensions wonít be a patch on a decent final salary scheme.

Stakeholders and vampires

Private pension companies expect to make massive profits from the new arrangements. New Labour appears to have learned all the wrong lessons from the pensions mis-selling scandal of the 1980s.

Although many employers in our industry continue to have final salary schemes, some do not provide a pension of any sort for their staff.

Worse still, the government's changes have prompted some companies to cut back on their pension provisions for employees. In many cases, they are pleading that changes in the pensions market have made the cost of providing pensions more expensive.

This may be true at the moment, but nobody knows if this situation will continue. Even if it did, why should we pay? Pensions are deferred wages. We shouldn't let our employers simply divert the money they would have spent on pensions into their profits.

We need to organise to ensure the best possible pension provisions for our members. Come to this month's branch meeting and hear how.

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Branch meetings

ALL branch meetings are held in Room 2D at the University of London Union.
The meeting will begin as soon as possible after 6.30pm. The meeting will finish by 8.00pm. There is a bar with very attractive prices and a cafe.

The branch is very happy to pay any member's baby-sitting expenses to allow them to attend meetings. Please see the treasurer if you require assistance. There is also a creche at the University of London Union. Please phone a member of the branch committee a week before the meeting to book a place.

If you are trying to organise a chapel at your workplace, we can help with leafleting, booking a room or providing a speaker. Just e-mail us from the bottom of this or any page.

Agenda

1. Apologies;
2. Any urgent matters arising from the minutes of previous meeting;
3. Pensions workshop and discussion;
4. Membership, welfare and legal matters;

THE NUJ is running a two-day course in October to provide chapel officers with the skills they need to assist members with problems, health and safety issues, employment rights, company procedures and handling grievances and disciplinaries.

The course runs 5-6 October in central London.

The union will pay full travel and accommodation expenses for members who attend the course.

If you want to take part, write to Linda Rogers at Acorn House by 10 September, stating your name, address, daytime phone, chapel position and whether you require accommodation.

This course is not just for established or recognised chapels - anyone who thinks they can make use of these skills building the union at work is welcome to attend.

Get Ready for Change

This new NUJ booklet offers essential advice, tips and assistance in organising and recruiting.

Call Deirdre Doherty for copies on 0171 843 3710.

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5. Reports from workplaces, from MABIC, NEC, National Organiser;
6. Motions;
7. Announcements;
8. Any other business.

Motion

Only one motion has been received. (Other motions may be tabled on the day provided they do not involve expenditure.)

This branch notes:
The motion passed at July's meeting backing the lobby of the Labour Party conference on 26 September in Bournemouth.
This branch resolves:
To buy a block of 10 seats at £25 on one of the chartered lobby trains to Bournemouth and to send the branch banner.
Proposed: Ken Mulkearn
Seconded: Gary MacFarlane

Don't get lonely:
recruit your workmates

Fairness at Work
=
New opportunities

Since some companies still believe that union membership qualifies as grounds for passing people over for pay rises, promotion or a job offer, members' contributions to the recruitment debate are identified by workplace rather than name.

NUJ assistant national organiser Paul McLaughlin introduced a workshop on the Fairness at Work law at the last branch meeting. A discussion on recruitment followed.

Reed: Turnover is quite high and that allows us to recruit new blood. You should always take the opportunity to ask every new member of staff to join. Make them feel welcome. We took the opportunity of collecting money for the University College Hospitals strike to visit other magazines.

Macmillan: Never be more than 60 seconds from a membership form. Choose the right time and apply peer pressure. When someone asks what will the union do for me, I say: Nothing, but it will give you the opportunity to do something with your colleagues for yourselves.

NUJ organiser: People can be elected as health and safety reps even where there is no union recognition. They don't have to be members but they do have legal protection from victimisation when they are carrying out their duties.

Small is beautiful?

Bloomberg: One of the problems with smaller workplaces, say 25 reporters and subs, is that the boss is sitting in the same room as you. Many are members as a sort of insurance policy. They do not necessarily have the confidence to hold meetings in work time or take up health and safety issues in the way that bigger places might.

Haymarket: Some places are so big it is difficult to know where to start.

Consumers Association:
It can be easier to recruit in smaller workplaces because people know each other and they tend to support their team mates. In big companies staff tend to focus on their section or their site. We are recognised, but with 400 people spread over many sites we need to keep up a momentum to overcome this tendency towards identifying with a building rather than the chapel as a whole. We have a joint union body with MSF (the majority).

Joint union co-operation

Emap Media: We need to co-operate with the GMPU because sales and technical staff are not eligible to join the NUJ. Ideally we would simply recruit people to one union.

FT Business: We have advised people, such as secretaries, who are GPMU eligible. We need to build closer links with the GPMU.

Reed: We have recruited people to the GPMU and will go on doing so.

Staff councils

Emap Healthcare: Management has tried to give the existing staff consultative body at least the appearance of greater independence and legitimacy. Meetings still tend to be embarrassingly short because most representatives are scared to say anything in front of managers.

IPC: Recent elections to the staff council, which has existed for some three or four years, were somewhat fairer than previous charades. NUJ members also tried to stir things up when the company used the forum to consult over redundancies ñ consultation was required by law ñ but managers made it perfectly clear how little discussion they were going to allow.

Conclusion

Try any or all of these ideas. The important thing is to get talking to your colleagues - use any excuse: a pay survey, a collection or whatever. And remember the membership forms.

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Just how badly we have been kicked around was revealed in a recent survey by the TUC of firm with 25 or more employees. It found that unions were recognised in almost every workplace (well, 99% of them) where at least half of the staff were union members. In the NUJ's case the proportion of places where we are recognised would be more like 30-40%.

That means our union is in a position to benefit more than most from the legislation. The NUJ is drawing up a hitlist of more than 100 companies where we will make an early push for recognition. In the great majority of these companies we already have more than 50% union membership.

The priority everywhere is recruitment. We have to get ready to win ballots, and we know that managements will try to make it as hard as possible. Some companies, such as Emap and News International, say they want to talk to their workers - but not to genuinely independent unions, only through sham bodies, typically called a staff forum or works council.

We have to be on our guard against companies signing sweetheart deals with tame inhouse 'unions' or no-strike agreements with the engineers' union, the AEEU, which has approached managers at the Western Mail over the heads of staff.

Branch round-up

Advert

LOBBY
the Labour Party
conference

There was standing room only at July's branch meeting, our biggest for some time. After a lively discussion of the opportunities presented by the Fairness at Work legislation to rebuild union organisation and reports from chapels the branch debated and passed two motions.

The first was a motion to the NUJ's annual conference concerning the Anti Nazi League, the second pledged support for a demonstration at the Labour Party conference:

This branch notes:
1. New Labour has continued with Tory policies, betraying the millions of workers who voted for them. Public sector workers are rubbished while rich parasites are praised by Tony Blair. There is no money for welfare, while millions of pounds are spend on warfare.
2. The lobby of the Labour Party's conference on Sunday 26 September, called by the ad hoc mobilising committee, whose signatories include NUJ general secretary John Foster, Tariq Ali, Mike Marqusee, Jack Jones and many union officials.
3. The lobby's demands of:
Restore the link - decent pensions; Welfare not warfare; 35-hour week with no loss of pay; £5 an hour ñ tax the rich; End privatisation and PFI/PPP; Full union rights now - repeal the anti-trade union laws; Scrap the Asylum and Immigration Act.

This branch believes:
1. Millions of workers, including the bulk of our membership, are sickened by New Labour's policies.
2. That the only way to achieve the things millions voted for in 1997 is to build a mass campaign, led by trade unions, and pressure New labour to deliver.

This branch resolves:
1. To back the lobby and to send a delegation, with branch banner to join it.
2. To circulate the membership with details of the lobby and transport to it.
3. To discuss financial backing for the lobby at the next branch meeting.

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26 September

Supported by the NUJ nationally and by
London Magazine Branch

TICKETS ON CHARTERED TRAINS FROM LONDON ARE £25
TO BOOK, E-MAIL
THE REPORT EDITOR

TELL NEW LABOUR:
• Full union rights -
  repeal the anti-union laws
• End privatisation
  and PFI/PPP
• Restore the link -
  decent pensions
• Welfare not warfare
• 35-hour week with
  no loss of pay
• £5 an hour -
  tax the rich
• Scrap the Asylum
  and Immigration Act

There was a 'bottomless pit of money' for the Balkans war yet there is no money for hospitals, schools, pensions or public transport at home. Legislation on freedom of information, union rights and the minimum wage has been delayed and watered down.

Win a trip to Ennis

Countdown to Ennis

WHERE? Ennis, on the west coast of Ireland, where the NUJ will hold its annual conference in April 2000.

Ennis is also a rather more attractive place than Eastbourne, the venue for our last conference, so we might see many more candidates putting themselves forward for election as delegates this time.

We have to elect our delegation no later than the 10 January branch meeting to meet the timetable laid down for for voting on motions, amendments and delegates. The branch is entitled to send eight delegates.

The Annual Delegate Meeting (ADM) itself runs 6 to 9 April, so the branch will get a very fresh report back on 10 April (though our delegates will be anything but fresh by then).

The timetable also means that the branch's last opportunity to send a motion to ADM will be our November meeting. And because members must receive seven days' notice of motions, in practice your motion has to reach the Report editor no later than 22 October.

So, if there is something you think the union should be doing nationally - or should stop doing - get scribbling soon.

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ADM motions and nominations to the NEC must be in by
22 November 1999

The preliminary ADM agenda will be issued on
20 December 1999

Amendments to motions already contained in that agenda, and names of ADM delegates, must be received by
7 February 2000

Final agenda will be issued
28 February 2000

Annual Delegate Meeting
6-9 April 2000

Branch meeting schedule