THE BRITISH government on Thursday announced plans to increase the pension contributions of more than two million public service employees. The contributions would be related to wages, with the lowest increase at 0.9 percentage points and the highest at 2.4. The increases, which would allow the British government to reduce its pension bill by £1.2billion next year, are the first of three consecutive annual increases that were being planned.
We mention this to highlight how responsible governments behave when faced with a pressing need to improve public finances. Of course, our government would argue that all measures should be reached by consensus, after negotiations with the unions, because workers’ rights and conquests could not be changed unilaterally. In the UK, the government entered talks with public sector unions, but having failed to reach an agreement, was not prepared to carry on talking indefinitely. On Thursday it announced its plans, leaving union bosses to make strike threats.
Some of the union suggestions, made at talks were incorporated in the government plans – lowest earners did not have to pay higher contributions – but it was inconceivable that unions would have the final say. The government had decided that pension contributions had to rise because life expectancy continued increasing. In the UK, all public employees contribute towards their pensions and civil servants who pay the lowest contributions, compared to teachers and hospital workers, received the lowest pensions.
This is how rational pension systems work in well-governed countries in which social justice is not just a slogan. Compare this to Cyprus, where civil servants, without contributing anything during their working life, receive state pensions, three times as high as private-sector workers, while the government, which claims to be building a fairer society, refuses to tackle this glaring injustice, because the PASYDY union will not give its approval. Workers’ rights and conquests cannot be tampered with, is the line taken by the arrogant PASYDY boss and the government agrees with him.
It is depressing that even now that our state is on the verge of bankruptcy the Christofias government does not have the courage to impose a pension contribution scheme on the public employees. This cowardice was illustrated earlier this week, when the government removed all the measures that would slightly affect public employees’ earnings from the rescue package agreed with party leaders eight days ago.
Are we a more democratic or fairer society than Britain for allowing the unions to call the shots, despite the damage caused to the country? On the contrary, we are less democratic because we have a weak and irresponsible government that allows a bunch of union bullies to impose policies harming the interests of the majority of society’s members.
