Karen Reay: If you listen to the pension facts, you’ll back the strikers

Trade unions are seven times more trusted than politicians when it comes to the facts about the affordability of public sector pensions according to a recent poll.

This result came as no surprise to Unite, after the Government attempted to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes on pensions earlier this month.

They claimed their latest proposals would protect people, who are ten years or less away from retirement, and said some would even be better off.

Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said a nurse retiring when earning £34,200 would receive a pension of £22,800 a year under the proposed new scheme compared to only £17,300 under current arrangements. He forgot to mention that a typical public sector worker can expect to survive on a pension of just £5,600 a year.

But when Unite’s pension experts analysed his figures, they found he was comparing a nurse working for 43 years and retiring at 68 in the proposed scheme with a nurse working for 35 years and retiring at 60 in the current scheme.

In other words, Danny Alexander conveniently forgot to mention the nurse would have to work 8 extra years and pay roughly a £1,000 a year more in pension contributions for a pension they would receive for eight less years in retirement.

He also failed to explain that the new scheme could mean a typical pensioner losing purchasing power by as much as 11 per cent because the Government wants to index pensions to the lower CPI measure of inflation.

Pensions are a complicated subject, and the Government seems to be hoping it can mislead the public with dodgy data.

But Survation’s poll shows people are not fooled. In fact, less than one in 10 people nationally believed a typical public-sector pension is “gold-plated”.

In this region, just 12 per cent of people believe a £6,000 per year pension could be described as ‘gold plated’. The average pension for a typical employee in the public sector is actually less than £6,000 a year – a typical public sector worker can expect to retire on just £5,600 a year.

People are wiser than the Government thinks. They may not know all the details but – because there are 12 million members of public sector pension schemes – everyone has a direct or indirect way of finding out the truth.

When it comes to providing accurate information on the affordability of public sector pensions, even more people in Yorkshire and Humberside (53 per cent) don’t trust the Government at all for this information – this compares to the national figure of 43 per cent. It shows Yorkshire people aren’t easily fooled.

Across the country just one per cent of people fully trust the Government, meaning that 99 per cent of respondents do not trust the Government to some degree.

According to the poll, trade union organisations were the most trusted when it comes to providing accurate information on the affordability of public sector pensions.

Danny Alexander used an example based on someone working full time for every year possible and retiring at the top of their grade.

Most retired NHS workers do not get anywhere near either of the pension figures for the nurse mentioned by Danny Alexander.

Indeed, figures show a typical public sector worker would have to work two working lifetimes to earn the pension Mr Alexander will be entitled to via his pension pot if he was to retire at the end of the current term of office in 2015.

Ministers who can retire on tens of thousands a year are slashing the pensions of workers who stand to get a few thousand a year and then have the nerve to call them gold-plated.

The Government’s proposals would make public sector workers pay more, work longer, get less.

It’s no wonder that all the unions with members in the public sector have seen overwhelming votes in favour of taking industrial action on Wednesday to defend pensions.

Unite has a very large membership in the public sector, but we are also the largest union in the private sector – and we believe that by defending what one group of workers has won, we will help prevent a race to the bottom.

Yes, our members will be taking action but they have thought long and hard about this, tried to get the government to listen – tried, in vain, to get them to come clean on their plans for the public sector.

So, if there is a rally or a picket line in your area, please show your support.

This is a defining moment for public services in this country – if we value them and want them to endure for generations to come, we must give the workers of today our support.

• Karen Reay is Unite’s regional secretary for Yorkshire.