LECTURERS from Kirklees College and Huddersfield University may have gone on strike in a bid to save their pensions ... but will it have any impact?
That’s the big question as the lecturers face an end to the final salary element of the scheme, an increase in contributions and a higher retirement age.
It’s a painful truth, but that’s what millions of people in the private sector have already gone through and the public sector is now following.
The days of a job for life have gone for good and, unfortunately, what some would see as the generous benefits of a final salary pension with it.
It’s a clear fact that in the current economic climate and faced with a population that is getting older we simply can’t afford it.
Having said that, perhaps if more people in this country took direct action like the lecturers, the politicians may sit up and take more notice of the disillusionment among a sizeable proportion of the population.
After all, compared to many other European countries, our retirement age is already high and set to get even higher.
Even though direct action may not change things, it could put the brakes on other cost-cutting policies now in the early stages of being formed by the Government.
