I have read the Pension Commission report and I have called it boring in the way that AI written reports can be. Much of the personality of the 190 pages has been removed and replaced by the bland language of consensus.
Despite that, the underlying gist of the Pension Commission is that things aren’t working and they need to change,
How a large and complex employer reacts to the PC report.
Monty or Muntazir
Monty Hadadi picks this up in an excellent post that talks of the challenges to large private sector employers who will need to lead the way. I understand that not only does First Bus manage busses with bus workers but it employs more people to run trains. He therefore sees his people in his own DC scheme but also in the Railpen dangers and as usual there is a DB scheme in place for older First Bus workers, many of whom are now retired. To suppose that large travel companies run simple pensions is to ignore the reality that most of travel is run on franchises where your ownership of people’s labour is transitory, you will win and lose franchises.
Remember this when reading Monty’s reaction to the Pension Commission.
Two key messages from Monty
- That this will be expensive for employers in the long term
- That pensions are the way people “exit work” when they retire.
This is a message that I hope that will be amplified til it hits the boardrooms of our largest private firms. Employers must start taking responsibility for people’s retirement and to do this , they will need to reorganise pay and the retirement wage. This is a subtle and short message.
