In Reply to: Re: Do(active) C-Plan IBMers want to join a Union? posted by Eeyore on 03 November 2004 at 20:48:07:
: As I said, I have 34 years service under my belt and so (hopefully) a fair pension is in the bag already.
Eeyore, the problem is that if IBM decided to wind up the UK Pension Plan then your 34 years may not be worth very much. Under the current legislation the fund under winding up is used to buy annuities or equivelent for retirees, whatever is left over is divided up amongst the non retired members. A recent change is that the non-retirees have now been put ahead of the inflation increases of the retireees.
IBM only has to bring the fund upto a minimum funding level before selling it off. As there are twice as many retirees in the Defined Benefit plan as active members, then I could see the relatively few Active members getting a bad deal...Hopefully I am wrong, but I believe that the Active members have much more to lose than the retiress
At the moment we are advised that such a large fund would not be able to be wound up as the market can only stand funds upto about £500m. However that could change if some of the large European or US players decided there was a margin in it for them.
I trusted IBM for 30+ years, but was seriously let down and would not trust them. They will do whatever it takes to make a profit and will justify the action as being bau commercial practice!