HOW'S your pension? Your answer to that question may well be a deep groan of despair. If so, you probably work in the private sector and have watched with a combination of bemusement and frustration as your rose-tinted dream of a comfortable retireme
nt has been sullied by stock-market slumps and Gordon Brown's raids on pension funds. That's certainly my experience. The days when I'll have nothing to do but read Elmore Leonard all morning and have a long leisurely lunch before a walk on the beach look ever more distant. And the beach will be in Cramond rather than the Caribbean.
If, on the other hand, the thought of your pension produces a small smile of quiet satisfaction, then you're a lucky bugger indeed. The chances are that you work in the public sector, where pension provision is generous and secure. Usually, it'll be the kind of arrangement that gives you a percentage of your final salary at the time of retirement.
The difference between a final salary pension and one based on investments is the reason you may find it hard to fill your car up with fuel this morning. It lies at the heart of the Grangemouth oil refinery strike, which, if it escalates, has the potential to bring the country to a halt and the economy to its knees.
The pension arrangement enjoyed by the Grangemouth workers is generous beyond the dreams of most other private sector workers. Not only do they receive 1/60th of their final salary for every year of service, they don't have to pay a penny in contributions. Their pension is, in effect, a free gift from a grateful company for their years of service.
Elsewhere in the UK economy, such schemes are a rarity. In a recent survey by the National Association of Pension Funds, only 31 of the top FTSE 100 companies operated final salary schemes that were open to new members. With some firms predicting that pensions will soon make up 50% of their labour bill, it's not hard to see why Ineos wants new arrangements for new employees.
It's equally obvious to see why the Grangemouth workers have decided they will not be bounced into following the national trend. They have immense power by virtue of the strategic importance of the refinery where they work. They know perfectly well the consequences of them withdrawing their labour. They know that a protracted dispute could easily become a national crisis conjuring up memories of 1974, when the Conservative Government had to impose a three-day week to conserve energy during a miners' strike.
The Grangemouth unions know this and so do the company management. That's why these workers are reportedly on an average salary of £40,000 a year, and why they believe they will always prevail in any industrial stand-off. They have leverage, and they're determined to use it to the utmost.
Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong in a union using its strong position to press for good wages and conditions. Call it market forces at work, if you like. Certainly, employers are seldom hesitant about taking full advantage when it's they who have the upper hand. What makes this dispute something of a curiosity is that the company has offered to think again on ending the final salary scheme for current workers – it may instead only be scrapped for new employees. So the union is bringing the economy to its knees for the sake of workers who do not exist at this time.
Because of this, the chances of the Grangemouth workers winning public support for their dispute are, I would say, close to nil. Ordinary Scots, looking enviously at the Grangemouth workers' pay and pensions, won't take kindly to having to curtail their lifestyles for this particular cause.
It could well be that the Grangemouth workers don't give a toss what the public thinks; that they see a chance to flex their muscles and protect their privileged position regardless of pension trends and regardless of the damage the dispute is doing to the country.
If this is the case, then Unite and the wider union movement have a big problem, and they would be foolish to underestimate how high the stakes are here. Some industrial disputes are capable of catching the public's imagination – nurses, teachers, occasionally miners have won public backing in the past. But is the public willing to make a sacrifice to protect the generous pension rights of workers who are entirely notional? I don't think so.
What's now at stake is nothing less than the public's perception of the right to strike. For a whole generation this is all a bit new and unfamiliar. The language of ballots, pickets, secondary action and working to rule seems antique to them. The images on our TV screens last week of tens of thousands of striking English public sector workers marching in London seemed an anachronism. But with a recession looming, such sights are going to become commonplace.
What the Unite leaders at Scottish and UK level have to realise is that they are in danger of souring the public's general view of industrial action at a time when the trade union movement is in a battle for hearts and minds. If the local union leadership is determined to press home its full advantage in the Grangemouth dispute, then wiser heads further up the ladder in the union movement should intervene.
The right to strike is a fundamental human right. It has been used for centuries in the fight for decency and dignity for working people. But like all rights, it comes with responsibilities.
The full article contains 962 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
