Sent to us at STUKFS..... Hi chaps. Ive just taken advantage of Pennys offer in her latest letter to listen to any concerns we may still have, so I have sent her the following email. Feel free to publish it if you like, and I dont need to remain anonymous. Keep up the fantastic work! Dear Mrs Mordaunt. Thank you for your letter today to all Fire Fighters. You mentioned in your penultimate paragraph that you were happy to hear our concerns or questions. Well, I have a few: I followed in my fathers footsteps and joined the Fire service at the age of 20, back in 1995. On day one I was given the paperwork for my pension and was asked to sign it. Its very expensive but its the best pension out there and you are guaranteed to retire at the age of 50, after 30 years service. The reason I could retire after 30 years service was I would be deemed unfit to carry out my job any longer. So I signed up, as did all my colleagues. Im now in my 20th year. I have remained a frontline firefighter as I prefer the physical side of the job. Unfortunately, due to my age I am not afforded any of the protection from the new pension reforms you have offered my colleagues - many of whom joined long after I did. That means that if I remain in the pension scheme I will have to work another 20 years from now, ten more than I was expecting. Should I choose to only work an extra 5 years you are going to withhold 21.8% of the pension I have paid for all my working life?! If I choose to work until I am 60 years old, those extra 10 years of pension contributions, coupled with the loss of the pension I should have been receiving over that time, equate to a loss of over £200,000! Please, can explain to me how you think that is fair? I joined the 1992 pension scheme so I should be entitled to abide by its rules. However, it gets worse. Your own research shows that I, along with 66% percent of my colleagues will no longer be fit enough to do our job as we reach this new extended retirement age. We as firefighters agree. Its ludicrous to think men and women should be expected to do what we do in our late 50s. I am more than aware that the later 2006 pension scheme has a retirement age of 60, but at the time that was introduced it was agreed that firefighters who are unable to continue in their role due to a decline in fitness would be offered alternative roles within the service. Its a completely different scenario now as due to the massive budget cuts in recent years those opportunities no longer exist! So what do you intend to do with us if you are not going to sack us on grounds of incapability? Because of the forced efficiency savings on my station (they got rid of half the staff, so the rest of us now work twice the hours) I work 48 hours one week, 120 the next. How on earth will I manage to do that in my late 50s. There are pieces of equipment that we use regularly that the vast majority of us wont be able to pick up when we get to that age- let alone use them safely! I, like many of my colleagues watched with interest the debate in the House of Commons earlier this week. Now you might say Im a little biased, but every single person who I have spoken to agrees with me that the debate showed there are huge reservations about your proposals- even from within your own party, and that the VAST majority of MPs are in full support of protecting your firefighters from these massive attacks. I mention the debate specifically, because as we should have expected, the whip came into effect when it was time to vote and the end result was the complete opposite to what we all witnessed during the 90 minute show of support for Firefighters. Yet in your opening paragraph you state that After the debate it was clear that the regulations should stand. Mrs Mordaunt, it certainly was not clear that they should stand. You faced a barrage of well informed questions from angry MPs, most of which you refused to (or couldnt) answer. You also state that There was agreement between the government and the opposition. Please forgive me, but I didnt hear a single member of the opposition agree with you? You may have won the vote, but the vote didnt reflect the overall feeling one bit! So please dont patronise us with wishes of a good Christmas. It is NOT a good Christmas at all, thanks to you. As usual, I, along with the rest of your firefighters will be working hard over Christmas (I might add without any overtime pay or bonus to be seen). Unfortunately the mood will remain rock bottom. The stress and anxiety clear to see on everyones face, while we continue to discuss the massive uncertainty over our futures, and the prospect of being forced out of our jobs in later life with a measly pension that will barely pay the bills. Shall I stay in the pension scheme or pull out will no doubt be the main topic of conversation as we eat our sandwiches, while you are sat at home watching the queens speech with your family. I await your response with interest. These are terrible times for us firefighters so with all due respect please dont patronise us any more. Kind Regards, FF Chris Moore. STUKFS The truth is out there.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 19:24:33 +0000
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