| Rankled unions accuse CBI of ‘hypocrisy’ in pensions debate |
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LONDON: Nearly 80 percent of FTSE 100 company directors are assured of a generous nest egg when they retire at 60, trade unions said today. Top company directors could retire with an average pensions payout that is 26 times that of most employees, hence “they should stop lecturing the rest of us” the TUC’s general secretary Brenda barber snapped.
The average pension payout for directors of the UK’s top 100 companies (if they decide to claim now) is £167,000 a year, whereas the average worker gets just £6,344 a year.
Barber was reacting to the CBI’s comments on pension reform where they suggested raising the retirement age of public sector employees. She quoted the figures from the findings of a survey covering 54 of the biggest employers in the UK.
The CBI president John Sunderland had criticised the prime minister when he failed to raise the retirement age for public sector workers from 60 to 65. Mr Blair had set a “poor example to the country” Sunderland had said in a letter co-signed by top corporate chiefs Gordon Campbell (BNFL chairman) and Justin King (J. Sainsbury’s group chief executive).
Barber repeated that the company bosses who pressed for a higher retirement age or workers could themselves retire at 60. The corporate chiefs were being hypocrites and in no position to talk about workers retiring later to earn a bigger pension, the TUC said.
Barber felt the CBI’s comment couldn’t influence the government’s pensions policy.
According to a 2004 survey by the National Association of Pension Funds only 22 percent of workers in the private sector had a retirement age of 60. The larger portion – 70 percent had their retirement age raised to 65.
The government ought not to listen to the “plutocrats who run the CBI” the union GMB warned.
Posted
on : Fri, 25 Nov 2005 01:35 GMT | Pensions News
By : Paula Jenkins
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