Camden UNISON convenor (personal capacity)
The long-running dispute over the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) has reached a crossroads after a High Court judge kicked into touch a judicial review application lodged by the country's biggest union, UNISON.
The union's leadership had sought the review in the wake of the Government's latest move to abolish the so-called Rule of 85, which had allowed the possibility of retirement at 60 after 25 years of local without detriment to the pension payout.
In its latest campaign bulletin the UNISON head office states: "Unfortunately, we lost the case. Whilst this is very disappointing, we do NOI intend to let it knock us otttrack in our campaign for a fair deal for LGPS members."
Such reassurances will ring hollow for many UNISON members since both general secretary Dave Prentis and the majority on UNISON's service group executive had urged members to put their faith in the judicial review.
To the surprise of few rank and file activists, the judge not only found against the union's position that the Rule of 85 did not breaco European Union directive on age discrimination, but also accepted the Government's argument that the scrapping of the rule from 1 October was altogether justified on purely financial grounds.
Six months after an historic day of national strike action engaging up to one million workers covered by the LGPS, the leaders of UNISON and the 10 other unions Involved nave squandered the energy and determination their members displayed on 28 March.
Senior full-time officials scrapped plans for selective action in the Meat Inspection Service and a programme of rolling regional strikes in exchange for little more than the promised of renewed talks with the local authority employers and the Government in the run-up to 4 May local elections.
By a wafer-thin majority, the top table at UNISON's local government service group conference in June sold the line of wait and see the outcome of the judicial review to delegates.
All that the union bureaucrats have to show for the months of delay and closeddoor negotiations is a marginal morovemenu protection for existing scheme members born before 1960. Even before the strike action they had already abanBitter cynicism is now widespread, with many believing that the national leadership threw away the best chance for victory by not pressing home the advantage before the local elections In the event that the SGE is not able to recommend