Unions Together

We’ve smashed our email target - so we doubled it - and now we’ve tripled it!

17.06.11

Just yesterday, we launched an action asking people to email their MP to ask them to vote against the Pensions Bill on Monday, and put an end to these unfair State Pensions plans once and for all.

We set a target of 1000 emails. But, within hours we'd smashed that - so we've doubled it to 2000 last night. Now, we've beaten that by 11am this morning - amazing! So, I've tripled our target to 3000! Let's try and hit that before Monday.

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/giveitthechop

If you've already emailed your MP, why not double the strength of your message by picking up the phone and calling them to ask them to vote against the Pensions Bill. It's dead easy, but this page should guide you through it:

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/pickupthephone

Let’s give the Pensions Bill the chop

16.06.11

The pressure on the government on the state pension age is mounting. We’ve seen the issue raised with David Cameron at Prime Ministers Questions two weeks in a row, and more and more MPs are signing up to oppose these unfair changes. That’s due to the hard work of campaigners like you.

On Monday, we have our first chance to try to defeat these changes once and for all, when the Pensions Bill is debated in the House of Commons.

The Labour opposition is going to argue that the Pensions Bill should be abandoned, because the proposals on the state pension age are so unfair.

It’s crucial we all get in touch with our MPs to ask them to vote to give the Pensions Bill the chop:

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/giveitthechop

We have to do everything we can to defeat these plans on Monday. But, if we don’t win that vote, we’ll still have other chances to stop them as the Bill moves into its ‘committee stage’. At that point, a group of MPs from across the political parties will spend weeks looking at the detail of the Bill. They can vote to change parts of the Bill if they want to.

Our job then will be to invest all our campaigning energy in winning those MPs round, and we’re working on our plans for that already.

But if we can get enough MPs to support us on Monday, it will be the end of these unfair pensions plans once and for all. The feedback we’ve had from MPs is that every single email, letter and phone call makes a difference.

Even if you’ve emailed a dozen times already, please get in touch with your MP again – this is crunch time. Will you email your Member of Parliament today?

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/giveitthechop

We can still stop these state pension plans, but we have to keep up the pressure!

Thanks

Helen

PS. There’s lots in the news about pensions at the moment. If you hear a discussion about pensions on your local radio station, why not call in and make sure we get the state pension age issue on the agenda too?

Steve Webb’s response

14.06.11

We've just received this letter from Steve Webb in response to the thousands of emails campaigners sent him asking him to stop the unfair changes in the Pensions Bill. You can read it here.

Karen’s Story

13.06.11

I’m 57 years old, and I have 3 part-time cleaning jobs amounting to 24 hours work a week, earning £7,455 a year. I’m a single mum of a teenager daughter and a disabled son, and I’ve only got a few small savings and no occupational pension at all.

At the moment, I get Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit, as my 17-year old daughter is at sixth form college. Next year, my daughter will leave sixth form college and, I hope, go on to university – at that point, I will lose my tax credits, and have to survive on my income of £7455.

I can only work 24 hours a week – partly due to health problems, and partly due to the fact that it’s difficult to find work in these bleak times. That means that I won’t be entitled to Working Tax Credit at all once my daughter’s moved out, as I don’t work the 30 hours a week you need to to be eligible.

Not only will I lose my Working Tax Credit but the eligibility to free prescriptions (I am taking 3 lots of pain management prescriptions). I get free prescriptions at the moment as I qualify for Working Tax Credit at the moment, but when the Tax Credit goes, so will the free prescriptions.

My household income will be effectively cut in half from next year, and I’m already having to dip into my few savings as my daughter has lost her EMA due to Coalition cuts.

Until recently, I have assumed I would retire at 64 – in itself, a big jump from the retirement at 60 I had expected for most of my life. Those extra years will make a big difference. If I were to get my pension, the suggested universal retirement pension of £140 per week would amount to £7,280 per year and be roughly what my poor income is currently for hard manual labour. And I would also qualify for free prescriptions, free local bus fares, help with Council Tax and concession prices etc – and I would also have a sense of dignity in retirement.

So I will be much much worse off, financially and health-wise if my state pension is withheld from me until I am 66 yrs old in nine years time.

My work is physically hard and I have health problems. I am worried about whether I will be able to carry on into my late 60s. I am terrified of ending up on Job Seeker’s Allowance, sitting opposite an advisor or assessor having to justify ''why I had to give up work that is proving injurious to my health'' and facing the possibility of penalties financially for ''giving up work''. No over 60s woman has faced being told this until now.

I had always intended to keep working until I could move into a dignified retirement from a life of toil, but I don’t know if, physically, I will be able to do this. The last thing I want is to have to stop working and rely on benefits, but I just don’t know if I can go on until I am 66.

It is not just about money, it's about dignity for over 60s women, many of whom will be the first generation to ''sign on'' and made to feel guilty about being older.

A lot of the news coverage has been about women who are professional or middle class, and I want to make sure that my situation is represented too. I am not alone, but sometimes we who are low paid and just about surviving below the breadline go unnoticed. For us, the prospect of an extra two years on that breadline is terrifying.

How can the Coalition government expect people to ''save more for their retirement'' when people like me have so little to live on? From next year, my weekly income will be roughly £143 per week. By the time I’ve paid my Direct Debit bills of £64 per week, I’m left with £79 a week to pay for the water meter, food, clothes, prescriptions, a small holiday, Christmas, birthdays, and to try and help my daughter through her education.

Impossible. These new changes in the Pensions Bill mean I have to bear this burden an extra two years.

The Government does not seem to understand what these extra two years means for so many people like me, with low incomes and big commitments. I’ve even been turned down for Carers’ Allowance for the hours I dedicate to my severely disabled 34 yr old son who does not live with me, but depends on me, and I was turned down as ''I earn more than a hundred pounds a week''! But not much more!

I feel not only robbed of my retirement, but totally kicked in the teeth now as well. As you can see, it’s not just me missing out on my state pension, but also my children suffering from the cuts, with no EMA for my daughter and refusal of Carers’ Allowance for my son. I feel cheated and robbed, along with my kids, because I'm an older mum on a low income, and for different reasons they both depend on me to help them.

If it wasn't for my kids, one severely disabled, and one just about to apply for University, I think I would lose the will to live. They have different needs and rely on me, and I have needs and rely on the Government who have abandoned me at a time of my life when my needs are greater.

The government says that life expectancy for women is increasing – but that’s not the case for everyone. Income and work make huge differences to life chances so 'if the government thought about what extra working years meant to female manual workers then why not use the health and financial fitness of a low paid female manual worker as a the basis when deciding the retirement age for women? Instead, the Government are using the life chances of women in better paid, non-manual professions as a measure, ultimately at the cost of the already worn out female manual worker.

Media round up

10.06.11

Just a very quick post to point out some key articles worth reading about the Pensions campaign.

Daily Mirror

David Cameron could make new U-turn over raising women's state pension age

INDECISIVE David Cameron could soon perform yet ANOTHER U-turn over plans to make women work longer.

The Prime Minister wants to raise the retirement age for women to 65 earlier than previously planned by Labour.

This would mean 2.6 million women will have to wait at least an extra year for their state pension, while 330,000 women will have to wait two years. But Tories and Lib Dems are among 161 MPs who have signed a Commons motion objecting to the move which campaigners have blasted as grossly unfair.

And Shadow Pensions Minister Rachel Reeves predicted that Mr Cameron will be forced into another about-turn.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2011/06/09/david-cameron-could-perform-another-u-turn-over-raising-the-state-pension-age-for-women-115875-23189320

The Guardian

Don't turn back the clock for women

Rachel Reeves writes:

Until this government's formation just over a year ago, every generation of women has enjoyed greater opportunity. My great-grandmother was a cockle picker on the south coast of Wales, my grandmother worked in shoe factories, and my mother is a primary school teacher. But this expectation that women of the next gene ration will do better than the one before is now fundamentally threatened.

MPs from all sides of the house are today debating what is shaping up to be the biggest assault on women and families for many years, one which risks turning back the clock on women's equality.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/08/government-cuts-women

Daily Mail

MPs demand U-turn on women’s pensions saying raising qualifying age is 'deeply unfair'

Ministers are facing a mounting revolt by Liberal Democrat and Tory MPs over controversial plans to fast-track the rise in women’s pension age.

Coalition backbench MPs yesterday broke ranks to criticise the ‘deeply unfair’ proposals which will force around 330,000 women to wait 18 months or longer to receive their state pension.

Nineteen Lib Dems - a third of the parliamentary party - are among 161 MPs who have signed a motion opposing the plans and increasing numbers of Tory MPs have now voiced their concerns.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2001195/MPs-demand-U-turn-women-s-pensions-say-raising-qualifying-age-deeply-unfair.html

The Guardian

Next U-turn: changes to pensions provision for women, please

Is there a limit on the number of U-turns a government can spin? I hope not as there's one issue that needs a change of heart pretty sharpish. It isn't sexy, like some of the issues prompting women to march in protest over newspaper front pages, but it's just as important, probably more so for the 300,000 women directly affected.

Changes in pension provision, an issue that's never going to provide the sort of media-friendly pictures of a Playboy protest, say, or sluts, whether walking or otherwise, smacks of injustice just the same. Strangely enough, the changes were introduced in the name of equality: why should women retire earlier than men? They live longer and can make the same useful contribution to the economy, so why bundle them into the Post Office to pick up their pensions any earlier?

The problem is that this government speeded up the bid for equality in a way that leaves a group of women just seven years away from retirement suddenly facing two more years without any pension whatsoever. Yes, this coalition makes a change in name of equality that unfairly impacts women – who'd have thought it?

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2011/jun/09/pension-age-increase-women

Parliamentary update!

10.06.11

Yet again we had an amazing response to our call for action this week. 999 people have sent emails to their MP, and between us we contacted 478 of our 650 Members of Parliament.

You can read a report of the Parliamentary Debate in Hansard here. We didn't win the vote on the opposition motion, but that was to be expected as MPs are very tribal about voting for motions like these. The real fight will be when the Pensions Bill itself is tabled in a few weeks' time.

The main aim of the day was to put pressure on the Government over pensions, and we certainly did that.

Excitingly, since the debate on Wednesday we've seen several Lib Dem MPs sign up to the Early Day Motion in Parliament to oppose these plans. There are now 23 Lib Dems signed up - out of a total of 57 MPs. And only 33 of those MPs are backbenchers who are allowed to sign EDMs - so, 23 out of 33 have signed up - 70% of Lib Dem backbenchers. This is the result of all the hard work our campaigners have been putting in over the past months - together, we've made this an issue that MPs have to listen to. Surely it's time for Steve Webb, the Lib Dem Pensions Minister to start to listen too?

David Cameron was asked about the State Pension Age twice at Prime Ministers' Questions, and the second time the question was asked by a Lib Dem MP - we are really starting to see them wobble on this now:

Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab): What message does the Prime Minister have for the hundreds of women in my constituency in their mid-50s who feel that they have been unjustly thwarted by the extension of their retirement age, contrary to the coalition agreement?

The Prime Minister: What I would say is that the first decision was taken in 1995, when there was all-party agreement that we should equalise men’s and women’s pension ages, and that was done over a long period of time. The second point is that it is right to lift the pension age for men and women to a higher level more rapidly than the last Government decided. However, the key fact is that 85% of the women affected are going to lose one year or less in terms of their pension. The last point that I would make is this. Because we have linked the pension to earnings, people who retire today will be £15,000 better off than they were under the policies of the last Government.

and then:

Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD): Notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s previous answer, I would, as a woman not affected by the current pension proposals, like to ask him personally to review this particular proposal, because of the injustice and discrimination against women. The group of women affected, who were born between 1953 and 1954, will be asked to work up to two extra years over and above what they had planned for, whereas men will be asked to work only an extra year. It is the discrimination that concerns me.

The Prime Minister: I do understand the point that the hon. Lady makes, but let me make this point. First, in general, the reason for raising pension ages is twofold: one is that we are seeing a huge increase in life expectancy, but the second point is that we want to ensure that we can fund really good pension provision for the future, and if we do not do this, we will not be able to. Let me repeat the statistic: four fifths of the women affected by the proposals will have their state pension age increase by a year or less. The reason, as she says, that there is this difficulty is that those two things—the equalisation of the pension age and the raising of the pension age—are coming together, but that is enabling us to link the pension with earnings, thus meaning that people will be £15,000 better off than they were under Labour’s plans.

This is what Shadow Minister for Women, Yvette Cooper, said when she opened the debate in the Commons:

In area after area, whether it is income, employment, child care, public services or action on violence against women, we are seeing the clock turned back. Today we want to concentrate on the Government’s reforms to the pension age and what is happening to women as a result. We understand the Government’s concern about rising longevity; of course we are all living longer and that has consequences. However, the nature and timing of the changes they have chosen is hitting women much harder than men. Bringing equalisation down to 2016 from 2018, combined with increasing the age again straight after that, means that women currently in their late 50s are getting a very bad deal. No men will see their state pension age increase by more than a year, but half a million women will do so. Those women, who are already in their mid to late 50s, are suddenly seeing their retirement plans ripped up. A third of a million women will have to wait an extra 18 months, and 33,000 women will have to wait an extra two years.

Let us think about what that really means. These women are already around 57 years old. They have been expecting to get their retirement pension in about seven years’ time. They will already have made financial plans; many will already have made retirement plans. These women are often the rock of their families. They are the ones who stopped work to look after their grandchildren so that their daughters could work, or they are working part-time and looking after elderly relatives. They have worked out how they can manage it, and how they can stretch their savings until the pension kicks in, and suddenly the Government are ripping all that up.

Those women have already made changes to their retirement plans, but these further changes are very late in the day, when it is extremely difficult for them to rearrange their plans. The consequence is that the equivalent of about £5,000 is being taken from half a million women, £10,000 is being taken from thousands of women, and £15,000 is being taken from those who are hardest hit—and they have less than seven years to work out how to cope. For most of those women it is too late to make changes to their financial plans and their career plans.

Let us take the case of Christine. She was born in July 1954. She is still working as a self-employed bookkeeper, and works about 25 hours a week. Like a lot of women her age, Christine says that she put her career on hold to bring up her children, so she does not have much of a private pension. She does not have extra savings to help her to cope and to make good the gap. Women in their late 50s have average pension savings of £9,100 compared with an average of £52,000 for men of the same age. These are women who took time out to look after their families, who worked part-time, and who started work in the ’70s when the pay gap was bigger. The pension system never properly recognised the contributions that they made to their families and to society, and now, as a result of what the Government are doing, it is kicking them in the teeth again.

The Government cannot tell us that this is being done to cut the deficit, because in 2016, when these changes come in, their structural deficit is supposed to have been eliminated. The best that the coalition has been able to come up with in its defence is to say that some of the poorest male pensioners who get pension credit will be quite hard hit too. I do not think that people such as Christine will consider that much consolation. Today, the Prime Minister tried to claim, “Well, it’s all right, it means that pensioners will be £15,000 better off because this is restoring the link with earnings,” but the link with earnings had already been restored as part of the Turner review. Making such a change now does not provide any benefits for women for many years to come. Instead, in the next few years, it hits extremely hard women who have worked hard for their families and for society.

Women on the Government Front Bench and Back Benches ought to do something about this. They should stand up and be counted; otherwise they are letting down women in their constituencies.

We need to get our MPs to put their words into action

08.06.11

Today, our MPs will have the chance to put their words into action on the state pension age.

This afternoon, the Labour shadow ministerial team are leading a debate in the House of Commons. They’ll be arguing the case that the government’s cuts have hit women too hard, and that the changes to the state pension age are unfair.

At the end of the debate, all our MPs will get the chance to vote for a motion that specifically calls on the government to stick to the Coalition Agreement, and back down on their plans to make so many women wait longer for their state pensions.

Will you email your MP to ask them to vote for the motion tonight?

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/wordsintoaction

Together, we’ve been pushing the government hard on this issue. Just last week, campaigners delivered our petition to MPs up and down the country – some even delivered it right to the doorsteps of Nick Clegg and Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister.

And our campaign is working – reports in today’s newspapers say that the government is facing growing anger from their own MPs about these plans, and just a few minutes ago the issue was raised with David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions.

This opposition day motion is unlikely to change the government’s pensions plans on its own – the real debate will come when MPs get the chance to vote on amendments to the Pensions Bill in a few weeks time.

But the more MPs we can get to vote for the motion this evening, the more pressure will be put on the government to back down. I know many of you have emailed your MPs before on this, but we can’t underestimate the importance of people getting in touch with their Members of Parliament.

Send your MP an email to ask them to put their words into action tonight.

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/wordsintoaction

We’ve come so far on this pensions campaign – we have to keep the pressure up now!

And a message for Nick Clegg!

07.06.11

Campaigners also went to doorstep Nick Clegg, in Sheffield Hallam.

You can read more about it in the Sheffield Telegraph, which said:

A GROUP of women came together at Nick Clegg’s Sheffield office to oppose planned changes to pensions which could make 500,000 women worse-off.

The protesters, including Janet Hague, one of the Sheffield Hallam MP’s constituents, handed a petition containing 10,000 signatures to staff at Mr Clegg’s office in Nether Green.

Signatories from across the country fear that up to half a million women born in 1953 and 1954 could lose up to £15,000 if the Pensions Bill becomes law.

Janet, aged 55, from Whirlow, said: “I worked as an accountant but gave up three years ago to look after my dad. I had planned to receive my pension at 60, then it was put back to 65 and now 66. The only thing I can do to cover my living costs is use my capital.

“It’s been suggested I could take Job Seekers’ allowance or get a job in a shop but not everyone wants that. It’s not fair when you have worked hard and planned to retire at a certain date for things to be changed.” Protesters want Mr Clegg to oppose sections of the Pensions Bill which propose the changes when it is voted on in Parliament.

Conservative MP, Marcus Jones, gets our petition too

07.06.11

Campaigners across the country were busy last week, delivering copies of our petition to loads of Lib Dem and Tory MPs who we need to get on board if we're to defeat these unfair pension changes. Diane, from Nuneaton, went to see her MP, Marcus Jones.

She said:

"Our visit lasted just over half an hour. I gave Marcus Jones the petition and the literature from Unionstogether. I also gave a document stating my view of this situation. We did discuss for some time how:

• waiting two extra years for a pension would impact on our lives

• it was not fair to allow women to lose out on one or even two years of pension.

Marcus Jones appeared to understand our thoughts on this subject. I am not a Conservative voter. However I did find Marcus Jones very accommodating. I do think he got my main message:
All women should have reached 65 and parity with men as originally planned. I knew in 2003 that my state pension age of 64 was in the year 2018 and have planned for this. Now in 2011 I’m expected to wait another two years with only seven years notice and find the money to live during those extra two years."

Campaigners take our petition to Steve Webb!

07.06.11

Last week, some of our amazing campaigners delivered our 10,000-strong petition into the hands of Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister.

You can read about their protest in this article in the Bristol Evening Post, which says: