In Reply to: Re: Activism - what style of activism? posted by Dick on 21 August 2002 at 18:52:49:
: Are we asking for equal to (or better than) RPI? If so, then IBM will always contend that we were never promised this. The company line was always that increases would be at the discretion of IBM - did you REALLY expect even the company of 10 years ago to give us an inflation proofed pension? Be realistic!!
I just expected that my (our) money (and I include IBM's contributions in this since they were part of my pay deal) that was invested in the pension fund during my (long) time with IBM would be used for my benefit after retirement - not that of the company. I see from the latest fund report that IBM lifted another £25.5m from the C-plan fund. If IBM had not helped itself to our money,
The fund would be well able to pay full inflating increases, as many other defined benefit funds do, but for the 'IBM contribution holidays' and maybe even in spite of them. Since it is my (our) money, if it's there I think it should be paid.
With hindsight I think the primary reason for not committing inflation proofing in the C-plan originally was precisely because the company saw the fund as a source of cash when times were hard. There's no reason why you would not expect the fund to be able to sustain inflation proofing it it were not tampered with.
Seems to me if the current process continues, it is quite possible that the fund could end up in a state where it could not meet its commitments.