{"id":6370,"date":"2015-10-20T15:36:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T14:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=6370"},"modified":"2015-10-20T15:36:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T14:36:51","slug":"water-workers-face-pensioner-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=6370","title":{"rendered":"Water workers face pensioner poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Today (Tuesday October 20) Northumbrian Water group workers start industrial action over the prospect of losing their pensions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Water supplies in the north east of England face possible disruption with call-outs for leaks delayed.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Workers potentially face losing thousands of pounds a year in retirement income while owner Hong Kong magnate Li Ka-shing is ranked as the 17<sup>th<\/sup> richest person and worth an estimated $25.4bn.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhen Li Ka-shing took over Northumbrian water in 2011, there was a pledge that all existing commitments would be honoured,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Pat McCourt unite regional officer.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSadly, this promise has been broken as the company now wants to introduce a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098career average scheme\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 from January 1 which means our members face pensioner poverty,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A continuous work-to-rule, call out ban and ban on overtime starts across all the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sites involving around 100 members from Unite and the GMB union today.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn the last two financial years, the company has paid out a total of \u00c2\u0141400m to shareholders, so the management could well afford to maintain the final salary pension scheme,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Pat.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This will be followed up by a 24-hour strike starting at 08.00 on Monday (October 26) involving around 44 unite members at the Tees dock road site.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe main reason the company gave for discarding the final salary scheme was the lame one that all the other water companies were doing it,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 added Pat.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Pat branded the excuse \u00e2\u20ac\u0098pathetic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 given that the company is highly profitable and owned by one of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s richest men.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe proposal to get rid of the final salary scheme should be shelved, otherwise a winter of industrial action is very much on the cards,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Pat.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The workers had voted by 61 per cent in favour of strike action and by 80 per cent for industrial action short of a strike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today (Tuesday October 20) Northumbrian Water group workers start industrial action over the prospect of losing their pensions. &nbsp; Water supplies in the north east of England face possible disruption with call-outs for leaks delayed. &nbsp; Workers potentially face losing thousands of pounds a year in retirement income while owner Hong Kong magnate Li Ka-shing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[270,132],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6371,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6370\/revisions\/6371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}