IBM staff wait for a 'kick in the teeth'
Workers at one of Portsmouth's biggest firms are up in arms over moves which could see their pensions slashed.
IBM, which employs around 5,000 people in North Harbour, is seeking to make changes which look set to cut the amount of cash retired workers can claim.
More than 250 staff have flocked to enlist in the Unite trade union in response to the plans, which have whipped previously placid workers into a state of anger.
Ian Woodland, 48, regional organiser for the Unite union, said: 'In about two weeks the membership has about quintupled.
'We're well into three figures, where we used to have only a handful of members.
'We've got a workforce which has been very loyal to IBM, and they feel that they're being discarded.
'Those joining the union are people you wouldn't expect.
'For years they've rejected union membership, but now they're saying "enough is enough.
'There are a lot of angry people out there.'
Around 250 members of staff attended a meeting chaired by Unite in Eastleigh last week to discuss the plans.
Peter Skyte, national officer for Unite, is leading the campaign against changes, and chaired the meeting.
He said: 'We were taken aback by the turnout.
'It far exceeded our expectations.
'The mood is very much they want to persuade IBM to change its mind. Many of them were key to assisting the company out of its own difficulties a few years ago.
'It feels like a kick in the teeth.
'A lot of companies are looking at this, but what sets IBM out is it's not a struggling company.
'It announced a couple of weeks back its latest results, which were the best for this quarter its ever had.'
The company said in a statement that it was making the changes to 'maintain competitiveness in the market-place and introduce greater predictability to long-term pension provision costs'.
CONSULTATION
The company launched a 60-day consultation last week to end its current scheme, called the 'final salary pension scheme'.
Under the current scheme, a proportion of an employee's annual salary is set aside each year, to be drawn from a fund when they retire.
Instead, the company wants to move towards a 'defined contribution plan', where contributions from both IBM and its employees are less.
According to Unite, employees currently pay six per cent of their annual salary into a pension fund, while the company pays around 20 per cent of the employees' annual salary into the fund.
The planned changes would see this cut to between three and five per cent from the employee, and eight to 11 per cent from IBM.
Employees could also be penalised for retiring early under the plans. The overall outcome is that employees would get less in pension pay-outs when they retire.
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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