Mass Pensions Strike to Hit Britain. posted by Richard Seymour

Presto!*:

Council workers have voted for what could be the UK's biggest industrial action since the General Strike of 1926, in protest at pension changes.
Up to 1.5 million staff will stage a walkout on 28 March following a ballot of unions representing cooks, refuse collectors, home helps and others.

The unions are angry at government plans to scrap a rule that allows some to retire on a full pension at 60.

Councils say that costs mean this must rise to 65 for all employees.

Like shit to a blanket, the words 'costs' and 'rising' attach themselves to any discussion of pensions. As I mentioned before, the entire 'pensions crisis' is a manufactured calamity, an attempt to induce sufficient panic as to get people to acquiesce in a systematic attempt to elongate their working lives - and thereby increase the absolute amount of time people give of their lives to capital. The government is leading the drive on behalf of and in collusion with the private sector, the former represented by the Local Government Association and the Department of Work and Pensions, the latter represented by that flush-faced sack of beef tallow and head of the CBI, Sir Digby Jones. The head of the government's pension commission is former head of the CBI, Adair Turner. Unsurprisingly, Mr Turner and Mr Jones have very similar things to say about what should happen to our pensions. In the case that has prompted this strike action, two red herrings are surfacing in the New Labour toilet, and left to float sideways: the first is that the law which enables workers to retire at 60 with full pension will become illegal under new age discrimination act, to which the only fair response is that an age discrimination act that facilitates the exploitation of the elderly is not an age discrimination act worthy of the name; the second is costs, which we have dealt with before.

Our pensions are under attack. We are constantly being told to save money we don't have, (while spending it at the same time so as to keep the High Street booming), and what is worse is that we are being told to invest it in company pension schemes under the HM Government-facilitated illusion that such pensions are guaranteed, when they are not. £5bn has disappeared as these company pension schemes have collapsed, because companies are not obliged to fully fund them, and frequently dip into them to shore up profits. So, workers who did decide to forego some of their income for a more comfortable retirement now find themselves obliged to rely on the same state pension that we are repeatedly told we cannot rely on because it's going to diminish in size. Aside from being asked to work longer (in many parts of the country, longer than the average life expectancy), spend more, and invest in company schemes, the new scheme from Mr Turner will require those who do not have occupational schemes to pay 5% of their income into a National Pension Savings Scheme: it is effectively a regressive tax which targets the poor, who are least likely to be able to afford such a scheme.

The present situation is already dire enough. Our pensions are meagre: while many European countries provide pensions amounting to at least 70% of working income, in Britain the state pension provides on average just 37% of the income gained through employment. Pension poverty is one of the largest components of poverty in the UK: 2 million pensioners live in poverty (and this, predictably, disproportionately affects women, whose pay is still well below that of men). Many expect to have to live off the value of their property, which again reinforces existing pay disparities, because many of the poorest workers can't even get on the fabled 'property ladder', and those who earned the most will have the most value in their properties.

And now the capper: by forcing workers to labour on until they are 65 years old instead of 60, one effectively transfers huge amounts of cash from workers back to their employees (in this case, the state). This particular move will transfer £100bn from pensions, which are really deferred wages, to the government (which will use it to buy nukes, wage war or give tax cuts to their rich friends in the name of enhanced business initiatives). It is a massive rip off, and the intention is that it will be replicated across industry - and it is sold to us as a form of crisis management, as if the wages do not in fact belong to us. This strike action is long overdue.

*cf Beethoven, Symphony No 9, Fourth Movement.