PENSION PROPOSALS – MEMBER FEEDBACK

Dear members,     

Thank you to everyone who has given their feedback to GMB Reps and Officers regarding the Company’s proposed pension changes.

The Joint Trade Unions have held an initial NNC meeting with the Company where your Reps strongly and passionately fed back the views of members following the site visits.

The Reps made it clear to the Company that there was widespread anger on how the proposals would impact on some of the Company’s most long-serving staff.

Many members were angry that after everything members and the Company had been through in recent years that they felt their loyalty was being tossed aside.

They felt that the changes were unnecessary, especially given that the fairly limited savings that it represented, with many saying that this could lead to long-serving staff leaving the Company.

Many members also felt that the Company was taking with ‘one hand’ so that it could fund the next pay offer, which we believe could result in anger being directed at the next pay talks.

We have pressed them to withdraw their proposals because they are unnecessary, impact on long serving staff and won’t actually result in any significant savings.

We have a further meeting scheduled later this month to pick up the talks further.

We will update members following that meeting.

Yours in union

GMB NNC Reps                                                                                                                                   Eamon O’Hearn – National Officer