WEDS 16 June, 1-2pm [Zoom link emailed to Members]
Deepa Driver, National UCU Pensions Negotiator
Peta Bulmer, Liverpool UCU who will update us on strike action to defend the faculty of health and life sciences
Information:
You will have seen the communication from SMT regarding the outcome of the USS consultation that was sent out on Wednesday.
We welcome the College’s commitment to keeping USS as a defined benefit scheme in order to ensure a level of security for colleagues in retirement, and we share the College’s assessment that USS trustees are taking too short-term a view of the pension scheme.
However, we also believe that the interests of our members are paramount, and that the College must prioritise the security of its employees. We reject the extremely pessimistic outlook that USS valuations have predicted over the past several years and question the methodology (and timing) by which these forecasts were made. This has been the UCU position for some time.
We will continue to oppose increased contributions from our members when the evidence shows that the pension has done extremely well in growth terms and defied all previous pessimistic forecasts. This is a useful primer on why the valuations are so mistaken.
Despite this, UUK and the government are now putting forward damaging proposals that will drastically reduce your retirement income and further increase your contributions. You can now get a sense of how much your pension earnings will be impacted by using this modeller. Once you have used the modeller, please also complete the very short questionnaire. We want to inform members about these changes and strategise our response as a branch.
To that end, we are organising a briefing on WEDS, 16 June, 1-2pm and urge all members to make it a priority to attend:
GUCU briefing: The new attacks on USS and what we can do
In solidarity,
GUCU
Useful links
FAQ for members (this will be updated regularly)
- Email from Jo to members, 19 May 2021
- Email from Jo to members, 27 April 2021
- Briefing for USS branches, 19 April 2021
- Email from Jo to members, 5 March 2021
- Jo’s blog on the USS valuation for the Higher Education Policy Institute, February 2021
- USS campaign updates tend to get posted at this link
- First Actuarial comments on the USS 2020 valuation technical provisions consultation, September 2021
- First Actuarial note on funding and prudence in the 2020 USS valuation, April 2021
- First Actuarial note on security of accrued benefits, April 2021
- First Actuarial analysis of impact of changes to USS, 2011-2019 (this was commissioned and published for the last strike ballot in 2019 but remains relevant and very useful)