First of 10 planned strikes today at Unilever Port Sunlight.

SOURCE

"BRILLIANT", its about time the british workforce stood up to these multinational companys, who by the way are making MEGA profits, last year Unilever made something like 4.6 BILLION euros net profits.Keep it up lads and lasses.......

A bird in the hand.....
It'll be no good moaning when the multi-national pulls production and bases it on the continent, it's a Dutch multi.
This has all been done before with other "British" firms. Your principals go nowhere when you haven't got a job.

It's similar to Shell in that it's half British and half Dutch.

Are there any large "English or British" manufacturing companies left.
Seems to me everything belongs to either owners or investors from other countries

+1 to that. Moving an industry/ research base to the continent or elsewhere would be a real danger. More likely is for parts to go to the USA or elsewhere outside Europe eg Brazil, Indonesia. I worked for this company for near 40 years and figuratively still listen at the keyhole to know what goes on. To maintain your job for the future my message would be "don't push your luck".

The strike action is about the pension scheme - which is very, very, much in the red ie far more being taken out (by wrinklies like me) than comes in. That is very largely because the fund income from investments has (like all investments globally) been reduced by trivial interest rates. That problem is compounded by mechanisation having dramatically reduced the number of fund-contributing employees. To maintain current pensions the fund is heavily subsidised by the parent company so the pension system sort of works, but it does not take a genius to see that the funding and payout arrangements need to change. The only alternative would be for the current employees to have to make a very much greater contribution to their pension during their working life. That could maybe be acceptable if, like me, an individual stayed with the company for all their working life. However, these days folk change their employer a fair number of times giving an issue of how to deal with residual pension entitlement.

Overall the pensions issue is one which HAS to be addressed by all industries BUT, I was always an optimist, one day the global economy will recover and pension funds will again be able to invest enough to make us smile.

Snod

My Dad worked for Levers for 50+ years without a day off sick. He got a medal off the Queen because of it in 1977. His pension probably worked out less than they get now (taking into account inflation & the "worth" of money these days etc). I don't think he got a pension, or anything to be honest, from the Army. He was just happy to have had a job for all those years really.

I agree with Snod about the paying in. You don't need to be an economist to work out that if there's fewer employees paying in, the pot is going to be smaller. If the payments continue to rise with inflation, the chances are that the company will end up either relocating to a country that is cheaper in every respect or end up going into receivership. Ergo, the payouts will need to be smaller. I appreciate that during this recession money is tight, but surely there must be some form of private pension that has small contributions that could top it up (one less pint per week, one less packet of fags per week - you get the idea).

I think possibly another problem is that most people who are of my age group (35-45) took it for granted that we would get a state pension so didnt bother paying into a private pension scheme. I opted out of the NHS pension scheme in the 90's because we were told that it wasn't worth the paper it was written on. We got £500 back. In hindsight, I should have put it straight into a private pension, but I was young and blew it. I regret that now but what's done is done.

I can see both sides of the arguement, but I don't think strikes solve anything. JMPO of course.

Don't think your dad got an army pensh because of the time he was in , wench. Something about it being pre-1972. We're still trying to get our Navy pensh from the 60's. I did 9 yrs mans time but get nowt for it and always thought I would because our pay rises were always abated to take the pension into consideration, which is a form of paying contributions in all but words. Can't see us every getting it but you have to try. The Union men who are inciting the action will still get their pension from the Union though, bully for them.

And so will the big bosses get their pension, so bully for them.
You touched on it, reduced pay rises and part of that deal was to put money into your pension, now that is taking a pay rise earned years ago off you. Similar to a firm telling you a wage rise negotiated 20years ago is being taken off you. How many workers would or should put up with that, the £30 rise we gave you 20 years ago we are taking off you, now you can work for pre 1990 wages. Its not cricket.

It certainly aint, but the cricket is crap at the moment too. I'm paying tax on my RAF pensh too, so don't get away with anything. Not entitled to claim zilch anyway but hey, I've got my bus pass.

They'll have the bus pass off you soon, just wait and see, 50 squid off the heating allowance was just the start of it.

Double whammy
I think raising the amount you have to pay in to pensions and higher insurances is a government think tank aroundabout way of having more money available to borrow.
You pay into your private pension, the money is then used to buy gilt edged bonds which the gov have to pay interest on which is then passed on to the taxpayer to pay one way or the other cuts in services or loss of jobs.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.


ONS data reveal that about two-thirds of all gilts are held by insurance companies and pension funds.[1] During 2009 large quantities of gilts were created and purchased by the Bank of England under its policy of quantitative easing.


Conventional gilts

These are the simplest form of UK government bond and make up the largest share of UK government debt (30% as of March 2008).[3][4] A conventional gilt is a bond issued by the UK government which pays the holder a fixed cash payment (or coupon) every six months until maturity, at which point the holder receives his final coupon payment and the return of the principal.

I work for unilever and when they take are pension off us you will still get 5% increase a year i will only get 3% and i am the one still doing 12 hour shifts and as for the pension being in the red it was i lie they just want to take it because it fits in with there global stratergy to cut cost so paul polman can can pick a nice 45 million wage packet for a year but i am sure he deserves it

Dave - please remember that Unilever does not own the Pension Fund. The fund is a completely separate Trust Company. Unilever CANNOT take money out of the fund. They could maybe BORROW money from the fund if they wanted/ really needed the money - and they would then pay interest on what they had borrowed. I may be wrong but I do not think they have ever done that.

In the same way the fund (which makes lots of investments in many companies/ government stocks in order to boost the pension funds) MAY decide to "invest" in Unilever shares. They do normally do that - when they judge there is likely to be a good return on the investment.

It is most certainly NOT a lie that the pension fund is in deficit. Read the audited pension fund accounts - real boring they are I warn you. The fund has been in deficit for some years because of the downturn in investment income but Unilever has ploughed company money into the fund so that (a) there was money "there" to meet immediate pension payment needs (b) so that the fund did not have to 'cash-in' long term investments to get cash-in-hand for pension payments.

Yes, this year I am told I will get a 5% increase in my pension, and you may well be getting less as a wage increase. However, you ignore that in several past years I have had no/ trivial pension increase while you have still had a wage increase.

I have to confess that I had to look up who Paul Polman is! I do not have acquaintances at that sort of level. I do not suppose you do either, but have most likely been "fed" his name and supposed salary package details by those who promote strike action.

While looking him up I also see that his total remuneration (salary + stock options and twiddly bits) for 2010/ 2011 comes to €2.8 million ie about £2.3 million. A lot of £ of course but not the £45 million you quoted. I have no idea from where you obtain such a figure. To compare the Chairmen/ Chief Executives of the Unilever main competitors (P&G and Colgate) receive respectively packages that total the equivalent of £9.8 million and £10.3 million - but I still would not say Mr Polman is likely to be short of a bob or two.

Snod

It is a fact of life that people nowadays live longer than they used to so pensions are paid for longer.The 65 for men came in under Bismarck over 100 years ago and was really set then in the truth that few men would live to 65.The average age then was under 40 and is now 76 so it is not hard to see that the goal posts have moved dramatically and successive governments (for various reasons) did not move things gradually in line with the increasing life expectancy. As a previous correspondent has said Unilever virtually every pension fund has a massive black hole which cannot be ignored for ever or everybody will lose everything.It is tough on current workers to be told now that things have to change but there is nothing new in companies having to change strategy when financial factors dictate.I fail to see what striking will do in this situation or indeed any situation as workers lose pay which takes a long time to recover.

5%, 4% rise - I haven't had a pay rise since 2009, have to sweat on my contract being renewed every six months and my pension contributions will be going up in April with (guess what) no pay rise!

As someone said earlier, I do feel the pain of a reduced pension payout but, everyone has to be careful here to not push their luck as a job is better than no job and we're all living longer so the old pension model just doesn't work anymore.

AR_One

'Tis only a rumour that there may be a 5% rise in pension come April. Will be welcome after a lot of slack years. Personally I will "wait & see" whether it materialises. Somehow I have doubts. However, whatever will be will be, and now the mortgage is finally ended we will cope. The Mrs still works a few days but what she earns was all spent seeing the lad through Uni and now supporting him while he gets on his feet with a job.

Snod

I'd still rather be in a job than without one, being jobless really is the pits. He who turns and runs away lives to fight another day, you can sort yourself out once things improve, and they will. It's a bind trying to cope these days but it has to be done, same as yesteryear.