By Richard Johnstone | 13 June 2011
Britain’s biggest public sector union is poised to take industrial action over planned pension changes in local government and health.
Speaking ahead of Unison’s annual conference next week, general secretary Dave Prentis said that a decision would be made this month on whether to ballot for action over the changes, which follow Lord Hutton’s review on the future of public sector pensions.The Hutton report, published in March, proposed increasing the pension age and replacing the existing final salary pension scheme with one based on career average earnings.
Prentis said that unions were in talks with the Cabinet Office and Treasury on the ‘principles [on which] to start negotiations’ between unions and employers on the changes. The last planned round of negotiations is due on June 28 and Prentis said there was a ‘massive chasm’ between the positions of the Trades Union Congress and the government. This is over whether the retirement age and contributions to pensions will be decided centrally by the Treasury or negotiated between the unions and employers – including the Local Government Association and the Department of Health – as Unison wants.
The union also wants a reassurance that a move to career-average pensions would not reduce the overall value of pension schemes.
Prentis said that if the go-ahead to begin talks with employers isn’t given, and the government moves ahead with the necessary legislation, balloting of 1.2 million workers in local government and the health service will take place in the autumn.
‘Unless the decision’s made that we move into talks, then we are going down the road to industrial action,’ he said.
Prentis said that while it was a final resort, talks had already taken place within the union about ‘what sustainable effective industrial action’ would take place.
‘We hope that the coalition will see the strength of feeling concerning pensions,’ he said.
