- Conference
- 2023 National Retired Members Conference
- Date
- 7 June 2023
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes the widespread opposition to the plan by President Macron to increase the State Retirement Age in France from 62 to 64 may well have been a factor in the decision by the UK Government to delay making a decision on the rise in the State Pension Age to 68, with reports that ministers were considering bringing forward this increase to 2035, affecting people who are 54 and under today.
Conference further notes that successive government increases in the UK State Pension Age has left women born on or after April 6th 1950 -April 5th 1960 significantly worse off.
Conference believes that it is the expectation that as we come to the end of our working lives we can look forward to a new and reinvigorated life through our retirement years, as a fundamental bedrock of a society that is committed to looking after its young and older workers and those who have already retired. State Retirement Age is an Intergenerational issue.
Successive governments, in planning for an increase in the state pension age to 68, have argued that the increase is justified because of the improvement in life expectancy for at least 30 years. As the TUC, in their submission to the Second State Pension Review, point out “the significant slowdown in longevity makes it impossible to continue with the timetable for increasing the state pension age to 68” adding “There are also wide and growing differences in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas and many people in low paying and manually intensive jobs are already facing difficulties working until State Retirement Age.”
Conference calls upon the UNISON National Retired Members Committee to
(1) Fully support the National Pensioners Convention campaign “68 is Too Late”.
(2) Fully support the TUC demand that the government do not implement the planned increase in the State Retirement Age to 67 between 2026/27.
(3) Campaign for future decisions by this or any incoming government on the State Pension Age in the UK to be based on recommendations by an independent Pensions Commission including representatives from trade unions and pensioners’ organisations such as AGE UK and the National Pensioners Convention.
(4) Support the WASPI campaign for an immediate one-off compensation payment to those women affected by increases in the UK State Pension Age, with the most going to women who were given the shortest notice of the longest increase in their state pension age.