Dear Colleague

The March One Day Strike and Pensions

We have had a large number of enquiries from members and branches about whether or not members should seek to make up for their lost reckonable service by paying BT their pension contributions in respect of the 5 March strike over MPG pay in BT.

The union is not registered to give financial advice so we cannot give firm advice. However, it may help members to know what they stand to lose by not paying their pension contributions. They stand to lose just one day of reckonable service. To put this into perspective, a member retiring in a few years' time with twenty years with BT would stand to loose one three-hundred and sixty-fifth of one twentieth of his/her pension. The loss is minimal. It will amount, in the majority of cases, to less than £1 a year of pension. (Assuming the average final salary of people in the MPG to be £25,000 pa, the annual loss of pension would be in the order of about 80p pa, so it would probably be lost in the roundings. The loss would be proportionately higher for people on a higher final salary but the loss would be at most unlikely to exceed £2 pa.)

I hope this helps people to decide about whether or not to make up their contributions. People who took part in the three day strike are differently affected, and have all been individually advised about how the union is dealing with their position. Anyone who took part in the one day strike who is leaving in the twelve months since the strike (ie by 4 March 1998), either on retirement or with a deferred pension, is also slightly differently affected and ought to contact Head Office via their Branch.

Yours sincerely

Ben Marshall
Deputy General Secretary