employer withdraws final salary scheme help

freezers

Hi my Current and last employer B &Q has started a consultation period for withdrawing its final salary scheme I have been paying in for 10 years, It would appear that my modest pension will go down by £500 per annum about 20% and that the company is going to offer a good will gesture of £20 per annum I had only 18months to go to retirement at 65. Is there anything I can do ? There is no union to fight our corner .
Has anyone else experianced this sort of thing any help gratefully received.

molerat

Your current FS pension should stay as it is for the service accrued so far so you will still have 10 years accrued up to now which should be increased by inflation from now until you retire. The new pension scheme will be a DC scheme and that is the one that will take a hit but with only 18 months to go it shouldn't be that drastic. How long is this going to take to sort out, quite a few months before the new scheme kicks in I would think which takes you closer to retirement on the old scheme.

kidmugsy

"There is no union to fight our corner": you may not have missed much. I was a union member for more than 30 years and it was worse than hopeless on pensions.

BobQ

kidmugsy wrote: »

"There is no union to fight our corner": you may not have missed much. I was a union member for more than 30 years and it was worse than hopeless on pensions.

You are entitled to your opinion.

The OP needs to either think how much better off he is through not having paid union subs over this period, he has no doubt spent the money on really useful things he is now able to enjoy.

Conversely the OP can ask himself why there is no union to fight his corner? The answer is because he and his colleagues have chosen not to belong to one. Sure B&Q might not have recognised a union, but they probably would have done if enough staff had joined one.

I doubt the Op will lose much as he has benefited from a FS scheme up till now. The younger generations will never know what affect belonging to a union might have had on their lifestyle when they retire at 70 many having been unemployed for the previous decade.

chris_m

molerat wrote: »

How long is this going to take to sort out, quite a few months before the new scheme kicks in I would think which takes you closer to retirement on the old scheme.

That's a good point.

Another possibility is that there may be an "easement period" - when BT revamped the pension scheme to switch from final salary to career average (in 2009 IIRC) amongst other changes they included an easement period whereby people retiring by a certain date could stay on the original terms/conditions, including the final salary for their full service not just that up to 2009 and CARE thereafter.

atush

I agree, with just 18 moinths to go you may not be affected, or affectled only in a small way.

Congrats on at least being in one of the last private FS deals.

savageHK

I take it the £500 decrease in pension would be the amount you lose if the Scheme is closed.
So 1.5 years' service at 60ths on a salary of £20,000?
Otherwise I generally agree with molerat's comments.