Final Salary Pension - Is it legal to withdraw it?

mania112

And yes as RedBuzzard has mentioned, you're not losing anything you already have. What you've accrued so far will still be substantial, 25/60th's is not to be sniffed at.

Don't think about moving it. Continue with the new plan too.

zagfles

Load of companies have done this. It doesn't matter that it's contractual - contracts have termination periods on both sides. Our company basically went through a consultation period, then gave people their contractual notice that they either signed a new contract without the FS pension, or their employment was terminated.

Southend1

zagfles wrote: »

Load of companies have done this. It doesn't matter that it's contractual - contracts have termination periods on both sides. Our company basically went through a consultation period, then gave people their contractual notice that they either signed a new contract without the FS pension, or their employment was terminated.

That totally sucks.

Linton

Southend1 wrote: »

That totally sucks.

Its reality. Life expectancy has increased far more than expected by anyone when the FS commitments were made. This has made the FS pensions non-viable for many companies (or rather the companies non-viable given the FS pension scheme). Ultimately its a choice between the pension scheme or the company.

Southend1

Linton wrote: »

Its reality. Life expectancy has increased far more than expected by anyone when the FS commitments were made. This has made the FS pensions non-viable for many companies (or rather the companies non-viable given the FS pension scheme). Ultimately its a choice between the pension scheme or the company.

Well obviously it's much more important for the chief exec to keep his 6 figure package than for the oiks to have a dignified retirement. How dare they expect anything to be otherwise?!

pandora205

Public sector is doing this too, though the accrued pension is safe and the career average is from the start of the new scheme (in my case April 2014)

Southend1

pandora205 wrote: »

Public sector is doing this too, though the accrued pension is safe and the career average is from the start of the new scheme (in my case April 2014)

Just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it right. 30 years down the line we are all going to be wishing we had fought a bit harder for a fair deal.

mgdavid

Southend1 wrote: »

Well obviously it's much more important for the chief exec to keep his 6 figure package than for the oiks to have a dignified retirement. How dare they expect anything to be otherwise?!

you are so right, the CEO is keeping the company going; if the company fails no-one has a job which is a far bigger issue than a change of pension scheme rules.

FatherAbraham

Southend1 wrote: »

Well obviously it's much more important for the chief exec to keep his 6 figure package than for the oiks to have a dignified retirement. How dare they expect anything to be otherwise?!

It's important that the company doesn't become bankrupted by the increasingly heavy burden of servicing this open-ended liability. That would be bad for employees, former employees, current pensioners, customers and shareholders.

If you really think that the chief executive's "large" salary is of the same order of magnitude as the pension-fund liability, then I fear that your indignation greatly exceeds your financial understanding.

Warmest regards,
FA

Southend1

FatherAbraham wrote: »

It's important that the company doesn't become bankrupted by the increasingly heavy burden of servicing this open-ended liability. That would be bad for employees, former employees, current pensioners, customers and shareholders.

If you really think that the chief executive's "large" salary is of the same order of magnitude as the pension-fund liability, then I fear that your indignation greatly exceeds your financial understanding.

Warmest regards,
FA

Um..... No that's not what I meant. My point was more that we are all led to believe it's in our best interests to accept increasingly poor working conditions and living standards while the rich get richer. If FS schemes were able to take a longer term view then all the distortion caused by the massive scale money printing etc would not lead to so many schemes closing. But of course there's an opportunity for some to profit from the misery of others, so they mislead people into accepting poor conditions.

And as an aside would anyone really care if sainsbury went bust and was bought out by someone else? It doesn't matter to the employees or the customers whose name is above the door.