Strike for USS - notice of organising meeting Thursday 15 Feb and EGM Monday 19 Feb

There will be an informal Action Committee organising meeting this Thursday, 15 February, 12:00-13:00, Room 106 Gordon House for everyone who wishes to be involved in the practical business of organising the strike (placards, posters and leaflets will be available for collection at this meeting).
 

We have also organised an Extraordinary General Meeting on Monday 19 February, 13:00-14:00, AV Hill Lecture Theatre (above the Anatomy arch) where members can vote on motions and debate branch policy. This is a formal meeting at which we hope to get a report from negotiations with UUK.

Key points about the dispute:

• If changes go through, USS members could lose up to £10,000 a year in retirement. First Actuarial estimates members will lose around 10% of their salary during their employment in lost pension value - over a month's salary for every year until retirement.
• The changes are unnecessary - the pension scheme is healthy and growing - it has £60bn of assets, the assets have grown at 12% pa for the last five years. The 'deficit' is premised on modelling scheme behaviour if the entire pre-92 university sector was shut down overnight and the scheme had to pay out on its own resources. But no single USS institution has ever gone bankrupt in the past, and even were a large institution to go bankrupt this would not force scheme closure.
• UCU has disputed the deficit while keeping negotiations open and exploring many options. The employers have stuck to their 100% Defined Contribution proposal throughout. Not all employers agree with UCL's hard-line position.

The UCU has completed an update of the strike FAQ.