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date: 28 October 2009

embargo: For immediate release

Private sector employers have walked away from providing good pensions, says TUC

Responding to figures published today (Wednesday) from the Office for National Statistics, which show that nine million people paid into an occupational pension in 2008, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

'These figures need to be treated with caution as they significantly understate employer support for pensions in the private sector. They do not include Group Personal Pensions and Stakeholder Pensions that have employer contributions. Private sector employers are increasingly choosing such schemes in preference to trust based occupational defined contribution schemes. These can still be good pensions but do not show up in these statistics.

'But even on the most generous definition more than 60 per cent of the private sector workforce are not saving in an employer supported pension, and are likely to face poverty in retirement.

'Private sector employers have walked away from providing good pensions for their workforce. This is why the Government has been right to introduce the new pensions system due to kick off in 2012, which will for the first time compel every employer to contribute to the pensions of their staff unless the employee opts out.

'No doubt some will use these figures to renew their politics-of-envy attack on public sector pensions, but the real pensions crisis is in the private sector, where gold-plated boardroom pensions are boosted by taxpayers while growing numbers of ordinary workers get nothing.

'It's time to start levelling up rather than attacking the pensions of hard working vital public servants.'

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

Contacts:

Media enquiries:
Rob Holdsworth T: 020 7467 1372 M: 07717 531150 E: rholdsworth@tuc.org.uk
Elly Brenchley T: 020 7467 1337 M: 07900 910624 E: ebrenchley@tuc.org.uk

Press release (400 words) issued 28 Oct 2009