The pensions timebomb

摘要

Hostility on the part of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) and Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) to Network Rail's decision to scrap 'final salary' pension entitlements for new entrants focuses attention on a problem that bedevils sponsors and trustees of nearly all established company pension schemes. The threat of a national rail strike or other industrial action by around 7,000 of the 70,000 members of the RMT and by 4,000 Network Rail staff belonging to the TSSA remains real as this issue of Modern Railways goes to press. The RMT ballot and TSSA pre-ballot referendum embrace concerns about a pay offer and free transport as well as the pensions issue and so interpretation of any result will be open to the sort of spin that rival participants in the debate find to their best immediate advantage. But let's face it, whatever the result of any ballot or other consultative process, the problem of the Network Rail Section (and most other sections) of the Railway Pension Scheme (RPS) will not go away and the funding rate that would be required to maintain the existing final salary scheme with all of its add-on benefits will continue to make change inevitable.