Analysis Breaking

Starmer’s Labour tells staff it plans to gut their pension scheme

‘Kick in the teeth’ slammed by unions: ‘If this was any other employer the shadow cabinet would be lining up to speak on Newsnight’

The Starmer/Evans Labour party has been slammed by unions for telling staff – those who remain after almost a hundred of them were laid off by the party – that it plans to gut their pension scheme.

The end of the ‘defined benefit’ scheme, which previously guaranteed staff a decent income in retirement, has been flagged to staff by the party hierarchy – and rightly condemned by staff unions:

With their usual disastrous sense of timing, Starmer and his lackeys have sprung the news on staff in the final run-up to vital local elections across the country – and at a time when workers are being massively abused by corporate employers, Evans and co are trying to outdo the abusers by asking volunteers to fill positions vacated by laid-off staff.

Staff still with the party had already voted for strike action after the party showed its contempt for them with a below-inflation pay rise and the GMB union has ended all funding to London Labour for its treatment of workers employed by Labour councils, while genera secretary Gary Smith has ordered a full review of all the union’s donations to the party, with union insiders saying that a complete end to funding is on the cards.

SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.

77 comments

  1. Akin to the ‘Sacking of Rome’.

    No stone left on top of another, and ‘sow the ground with salt’, as the Romans did to the Carthaginians.

    Two Classics for the price of one. Cut-price Labour.

    1. It’s a bit rich of the Unions to complain about this whilst they pontificate about cutting their funding to Labour. They shouldn’t be surprised that their actions have had consequences.

      1. £13m spunked on their mates. Fire and rehire. Rig the pension scheme.

        All someone else’s fault, innit? 😙🎶

        Work for your dole soon. Of course, the toerags will most likely be the ones to implement it, but make no mistake, keef would – and will – give them his full support if they do.

        Reeves has probably already planted that particular seed on keefs’s lughole.

      2. Labour were in negative cash-flow for some months before the 19GE

      3. Yes Unions are cutting funding to Labour Steve H because Starmers Labour refuses to back the unions in any way. They are not getting value for money and as they have an obligation to spend their political funds in a way which will benefit their members they have no option but to reduce what they hand over to a hostile Labour party.
        Also Members are leaving hand over fist -Jews are being expelled wholesale on the absurd grounds of ” antisemitism”. Our BAME Irish Kashmiri Muslim and Socialist brothers and sisters are leaving in droves either voluntarily or by expulsion. Our Liverpool members especially are disgusted by Starmers association with the S*n , many have resigned because of this. Many of our CLPs are not functioning and campaigning is impossible due to the expulsions or resignations of so many activists.
        So Steve H its not the Unions that have caused us financial problems – Starmer and the shower he has round him have brought us to near bankruptcy all by themselves

      4. Smartboy – Corbyn lost nearly 20% of the membership.

        These are the actual number of fully paid up members entitled to vote in internal Labour Party elections.. They do not include members in arrears.
        November 2017 – 525,779
        June 2018 – 506,320
        November 2019 – 430,359

      5. Andrew – Oh dear are you having problems coping with reality?

      6. Reply to Steve H
        When you say Jeremy lost 20% of the membership you are overlooking the fact that he brought in over 300,000 new members bringing the total membership to half a million. If 20% of 500,00 members left i.e. 100,000 that means that there were still twice as many members at the end of his tenure than there were at the start of it.
        Your attitude reminds me of that of Rachel Reeves – she like you can never be brought to give Jeremy even the smallest bit of credit for anything.

      7. Classic victim “blaming by another labour villian Steve H or so he tells us although he does admit to a few deceptions on here..!

      8. Joseph – Have you managed to work out who the victims are that you are accusing me of blaming yet

      9. SteveH
        You wouldn’t know what negative cash flow is if it bit you on the arse
        What led to the negative cash flow
        You remind me of ‘Brains’ in Top Cat

      10. Doug – Corbyn’s team based their budgets on having a minimum of 500,000 members.

      11. Where’s all these wealthy corporate donors who are going to take the place of party members and labour movement organisations who have been told they are not wanted for the past forty odd years?

        Its like tumbleweed. Which tells you all you need to know about the LP chances of achieving Government. Because those donors donate for a reason. To be at the front, middle and end of the queue to collect from those they have backed. Not to be ahead of the voting public but to replace them.

        The fact they are not queuing up to donate is because they know its just throwing good money away for nothing on a group of malevolent incompetents who are never going to be in a position for those donors to collect on their investment.

        In short, the lack of corporate and wealthy donors is a bet that this shower of half wits, grifters and chancers are no hopers in terms of ever getting into Government.

        steveH’s shameful attempt to blame the victims of the constant witch hunts and abandonment of any notion of doing what it says on the tin – ie the Unions and members – is about par for the course.

        After all, he’s already blamed the victims of the missile attack war crime in Donetsk which took place on Sunday 13 March on the victims rather than the perpetrators and spent days on this site defending nazis and fascists.

        Its what everyone has come to expect from this poundshop Lord Haw Haw.

    2. George, this comes as no surprise. Labour is bankrupt, and it’s also what spivs and crooks like Maxwell and Green did to their employee pension funds. It’s what the Govt did to the Miners Pension Fund, it’s what the Universities are doing to their staff pension fund.

      Labour is no different to the Establishment crooks of this Country. They are the problem not the solution to the ills of our Society. Fuck them, the sooner they die the better.

    3. This is typical of what to expect of NuNewLabour. And our furry friend below forgets that the unions who pull funding do so after Party HQ play their tricks – not before…….!

      1. Ludus57- Are these the same Unions that voted through all Starmer’s reforms at conference and who sit on the NEC.

    4. With all due respect to the valuable contributions of The Toffee & George Peel, they should be wary of letting debates on this site to be hijacked by a certain neoliberal troll who has no place within this sites community.
      The issue here is about neoliberal entryism in Labour and subversion of basic historic workplace standards – now even replicated within Labour’s own employment practices. It is NOT about compelling Union members to finance a party nowacting against their interests.
      Thanks to Blairite infiltration we now have youngsters with less workplace protections than their parents and grandparents.
      We should be having our own debates about combating neoliberal support for casualisation, and how to strategically respond to this.
      Replying to Troll bait lies about, Corbyn’s supposed failures, and fake assertions about union support for neoliberalism, wastes campaigning space and this is exactly what the Troll wants!

      1. Completely agree with you, vast majority of his posts are specifically designed to bait, distract from the point being discussed, and as you put it, wastes campaigning space.

    1. Paul cardin We are all aware of the coming catastrophe and finding a good employer that doesn’t veiw the pension fund as a private piggy bank will be very difficult.Those of you with private pension funds should be very frightened and even those on state pensions like myself are not immune to the Western world robber barons.IF a government can board a foreign persons yacht on the high seas and nick it because they are Russian or support Russia as two thirds of the worlds population do then anything can be robbed.

      1. Not to mention:

        – The freezing of bank accounts of ordinary people who donated small sums of money to the Truckers protest crowdfunder by the Canadian Government.

        If you have no bank account you can’t get paid, pay bills, your mortgage; if you are self employed you can’t receive payment for invoices or pay for materials, consumables etc necessary to do your work. You are effectively outlawed.

        – The continued theft of assets of other countries – including the Gold of Iran (1979), Afghanistan, Venezuela, and now Russia.

        These are the acts of pirates. Yet they are the elite establishment leaders of an entity which bills itself as “The International Community – in reality approximately 30 of humanity. Like pirates they should strung up. Every last one of them, alongside their shills.

        You would get plenty of volunteers. Particularly in the coming period when the blowback starts taking effect.

    1. You make a very valid point Joe Robson – how can Starmers Labour ever criticise P&O or any other employer for unethical behaviour when it treats its own staff so badly.
      I think strike action is the only course of action open to staff and they should be balloted on it now so that they can go on strike in the run up to the elections.

  2. I can’t help thinking that’ll this is designed to prompt union disaffiliation and create a ‘union-free’ quasi Democratic Party as was always Blair’s intention. To upset the GMB is quite an achievement. Just a hunch of course.

    1. More than a hunch I would have thought, he’s an Establishment plant whose function is to destroy or neuter the political arm of the Labour movement. The strategists of Capital know their system is in deep crisis and the only way forward for it is to create some form of neo feudalism, where working people will be shifted more and more toward some form of bonded labour. The step after that would be to have debt inherited by families. Think that’s fanciful? Look at the way the American economy is headed. The biggest federal debtors are graduates. The whole direction of capitalism is toward a rentier economy where the burden of debt will be carried by the working class and also a large portion of the middle class, (but they’ll be the last to realise it.) To achieve this the financial institutions must destroy any opposition or neuter it. It’s companies like Blackstone and Blackrock which will be the music of the future. I’m not sure which companies own the PFI debt now, bur believe them to be hedge funds etc…offshore of course.

      Anywaybeginning to ramble.

  3. While on the subject of pensions do look up the UCU website for the fight against the university employers’ attack on the USS defined-benefit pension. Then go to Dennis Leech, Warwick, Twitter and folllow the comments there, in particular Sam Marsh.

    1. Southside soon to be renamed ” The Marie Celeste”. Like the plp, the lights are on but…

  4. Paul Smith is probably correct.
    There can be no other rational explanation for such pig-headed stupidity.
    One has to wonder how the Toe-Rag Party treats its staff.
    Good old Starm-Trooper …… Always with the oppressor – – Never with the oppressed.

  5. Labour were in negative cash-flow for some months before the 19GE

    Well now! There’s another first from you. It’s took you all this time to come up with this latest steaming pile of horseshit.

    Everyone else has read in multiple publications across the board about how keef has spunked £13m in under two years.

    But no. It’s Corbyn did that….Corbyn and his >430k PLUS the 204 BIG donors

    …Compared to the FAR fewer (half would be overly generous) of ( paying/paid up) members and the whopping 56 big donors keef has relied on for funding.

    *Expects some anti-Corbynist uncorroborated bullshit publication link to be provided as ‘proof’.

    Well don’t bother soft shite. I know who I believe.

    1. Toffee – On the contrary it is something that I have mentioned several times before. It isn’t hard to work out when Corbyn’s budgets were based on Labour having at least 500k members plus Corbyn losing 60 seats had quite a financial impact on the party’s funds.

      1. Negative cashflow does not mean bankrupt, just that the party was spending more than it is receiving, normal in an election year I would of thought. This is just more smoke and mirrors designed to let Keif and the other red tories off the hook for the calamitous way the party has been run in to the ground, when the Starmer Reich took over they had a well documented £13million in the bank, they gave it to the rats that lost the election no doubt as a reward, now they are broke and actually sacking workers and removing benefits, the UK Labour party acting like a Robber baron boss, making workers pay for their own mistakes. And as for Corbyn losing 60 seats, Keif and his FBPE starmtroopers are directly to blame for that well documented shower of Sh1t.

      2. mrmoose66 – Perhaps you should reflect on who was the numpty that created that liability by issuing an official Labour Party statement without first getting it checked by the party’s legal advisors.

      3. driscco – I’m sorry but you are mistaken,

        Unfortunately you are comparing apples with oranges. The Labour party figures that you have quoted are inflated because they include lapsed members who are up to 6 months in arrears with their membership fees whereas the figures that I have quoted are the actual number of fully paid up members who are entitled to vote in Labour’s internal elections.
        I would argue that my figures are accurate because they represent the actual number of paid up members at the cut off date for various NEC and leadership elections. You can easily check these for yourself. Here is an example. https://labour.org.uk/people/leadership-elections-hub-2020/leadership-elections-2020-results/.

        July 2017 – 538,606
        November 2017 – 525,779
        June 2018 – 506,320
        November 2019 – 430,359
        January 2020 – 552,835
        August 2020 – 495,961

    1. Toffee – But you are the one who is following me around like a needy stray seeking attention. It isn’t my fault that you are incapable of backing up your rants.

      1. But but but – you

        Shit up you complete ponce. Start posting sensibly about the REAL reason your party’s in the financial shite.

        It’s because of that greasy prick and his clique. No ifs, no buts, no equivocation

        NOT because of someone who left the party £13 MILLION in the black (PROVE OTHERWISE), with probly about TREBLE the fee paying membership PLUS almost FOUR TIMES as many large donors.

        NO mass sackings and rehiring on lower wages. NO mass expulsions, NO mass exodus. NO unions withholding moolah, NO appeals for unpaid work….

        …Not a fucking bit of it.

        ALL of it happening under the box-headed slimeball.

        So he that RIGHT up ya, you godawful, cryarsing, lying little gobshite.

        .

      2. Oh dear WHAT, prick?

        Been found out AGAIN have ya?

        All of those things happen under Corbyn or not?

        It’s ‘NOT’ – isn’t it, gobshite? Obviously – because you’d address the points to make yourself look like you know what you’re on about if I was wrong.

        Tell you what DID happen under Corbyn though… Shithouses like smarmer undermining him at every opportunity so he could have his own train set.

        And look what happened when fat greasy controller keef got his wish… The train didn’t stop at any stations – because the driver got sacked along with the guard. It tootled on until it ploughed into the buffers. Some passengers were wrongly accused of not paying their fares; plenty of others fucked off in disgust at the way the lone was being run

        …The electric bill was spent on the buffet car bill for keef and his clique, and now the fat (greasy) controller can’t even flog a fucking platform ticket.

        But it was ALL thomas’ fault…

      3. When socialist labour were in power,but not in control the old guard mcnicker and co diverted money 💰from the labour party acounts and we still dont know how much was filched because the theives are now in power and control.Whatever comes out of Southside must be veiwed with a large pinch of salt as they cannot tell the real story because they would behind charged if they did.and would incriminate themselves.Prepare for a fire sale or a………stocktaking?

  6. Wasn’t it only a few days ago there were reports that the party was putting £1 million aside to train new staff as community organisers. So where’s that money coming from?

      1. Try reading the Labour Party annual reports, SteveH, They prove that your assertions about money and membership are made up.

    1. I’m sure there’s a word for it somewhere, George.

      Anyone else with a infinitesimal amount of awareness/ self awareness would, by now, have surely come to their senses and concluded that their fiendish plans of attempting to convert everyone to smarmerism just isn’t working, and not worth the continual embarrassment of having their theories well & truly taken to the cleaners ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

      Not wee fella though.

      Someone mentioned universities and lecturers earlier on in the thread… I’m damned certain wee gobshite has claimed to have been a (retired) lecturer, previously. (IIRC it was when challenged about him allegedly being ‘headhinted’ to teach in those tropical climes).

      Strange, that he hasn’t replied in any way to that particular post….

      You’d have thought he might have shown a smidge of solidarity with his *ahem* former colleagues, or even a bit of insight into the situation – but not our Stevie.

      Wonder why? 😙🎶

      .

      1. Toffee – I have never claimed to be a member of the teaching profession (they are not very well paid).
        Yes I have spent a total of about 4 years in Africa as a volunteer passing on my technical skills.
        I have never claimed that I have been headhunted by anyone to teach.

  7. How much has been spent on the ongoing anti-left witch-hunt and trawling through members’ social media histories for something, anything, to justify kicking leftists out of what’s supposed to be a left-wing party?

    1. Proscribing all these left-associated groups costs money in terms legal work and enforcement of the NEC’s rules too.

      Weird set of priorities, isn’t it, this continued hounding of the party’s membership with elections coming up and when they’re in such a financial mess.

  8. Makes you wonder if staff might take a leaf out the book of those who were referred to in the “leaked report” – they pretended to be very busy working for the LP but were actually messaging each other and playing space invaders.

  9. Brown 2010 8.6m.
    Miliband/Reeves 2015 9.3m.
    Corbyn 2017 12.8m.
    Corbyn 2019 10.2m.

    1. Yes, the Labour vote was on an upward trajectory until 2019 when for the first time ever more of the working class voted Tory than voted Labour

      1. Neo-Liberal Centrism 2010 8.6m.
        Social Democracy 2015 9.3m.
        Mild Left Wing Democratic Socialism 2017 12.8m
        Liberalism re the EC/Left Wing Democratic Socialism 2019 10.2m.

      2. Yes, the Labour vote was on an upward trajectory until 2019 right after keef and fattwat shat on democracy and got their second referendum sell out shithousery

        Fixed.

  10. The Starmer Party will do what the Starmer Party will do and getting protective over ‘The Labour Party’ as a discernible brand, given how traduced and irrelevant it has become over the last few decades is not worth the effort BUT a party that would warrant a vote in my book would be a beacon for the way the world should be, not a sheepish adherent to ever more divisive practices.

  11. An aside – The BBC reports that:
    “……… French officials said the Russian leader had agreed to consider plans to evacuate civilians from the city [Mariupol].
    Russia has since announced a one-day ceasefire for Thursday.
    The defence ministry said the ceasefire would start at 10:00 local time (08:00 BST) and would allow people to travel westwards to Zaporizhzhia via the Russian-controlled port of Berdyansk.
    The ministry said it wanted the Red Cross and the UN’s refugee agency to take part in the evacuation, and said it was waiting for a response to the proposal from Ukraine.”
    Can we be hopeful?

      1. I expect you Steve H would be very worried if your private pension fund was in the hands of unscrupulous employers and they had done a “Maxwell” on you?….and I don’t mean molesting mr H.

      2. Sh! Craig Murray’s talking to you, Steve H.

        Craig Murray :

        I find your narrow mindset impenetrable. All these things can be true at once:

        1) Better western diplomacy might have evaded war

        2) Putin’s invasion is illegal and Putin is a war criminal

        3) Zelensky is financially corrupt

        4) Zelensky is an excellent war leader.

        3:31 PM · Mar 29, 2022·Twitter Web App

      3. “I suppose that depends on how much you trust Putin ” – indeed, but you missed the other caveat – “and how much you trust Zelensky”.

    1. goldbach
      Putin is a fully paid up member of the kleptocracy, Zelensky is a Nazi who claims to be Jewish, neo cons have rattled Germany and EU’s cage, it’s all standard Mafia stuff
      As we speak spoils of war are being divvied up

      1. Doug – He also claims that his first language is Russian, do you have any credible evidence to support your silly assertions.

  12. Akehurs an utter Cunt! I am so happy Labour is done and finished. Can’t wait to tell Liebour to fuck off in May Elections and I am very much not alone. 🙂

    1. Andrew – When are you going to grow up and stop using misogynistic language.

  13. I woke up late this morning….raining ☔heavily in the middle of the dry season and all of us being carfull with the mosquito nets and the coils due to the worry of a dengue fever outbreak in nearby village.
    .Now the news of the labour pension fund comes as no surprise and my immediate reaction was “Maxwell” .The more unscrupulous employers use the pension fund as their very own piggy bank.Now would anyone here describe the behaviour of the Starmer regime as a good employer or a careful and honest caretaker of the Labour party finances?….I am sure that much more is to be unearthed when the criminals flee the bankrupt labour party but by then I am sure that a mysterious fire or theft of documents will happen because isnt that the prerogative of the mob.?Nothing coming out of Southside can be trusted,but I am sure that there are more savvy employees will have gathered evidence of the criminals who are running down the labour party.

  14. https://skwawkbox.org/2022/03/30/starmers-labour-tells-staff-it-plans-to-gut-their-pension-scheme/#comment-219697

    Again with your failure to count and your compulsive bullshit.

    Who more than doubled – nigh on trebled- – the membership of the party to make it THE largest party in terms of membership in Europe?

    Wasn’t keef, was it?

    And if I start with 201k or even and by the time I’ve finished there’s 430k I’ve actually GAINED 229k.

    Keef’ haemorrhaged something like 250 members daily on average – perhaps more – is continuing to do so, and STILL hasn’t come anywhere near the 500k+ that were present under Corbyn.

    And NEVER WILL.

    For someone who has previously claimed to have been headhunted by THREE schools to teach in them, you really ought to have a grasp of basic arithmetic.

    Instead you’ve been proved am innumerate, illiterate, socially-awkward bullshitter, yet again.

    Get a life. Get a personality. Go and visit a brass and get your hole (depending on just HOW desperate they are for business, or if they’re a deaf/blind masochist).

    But FFS do something other than come on here pathetically trying to convince normal, rational people that a persistently proven pathological pissant such as yourself is some sort of authority, and having to wear your arse for a hat time after time, after time.

    1. Toffee – You’re a joke. You can’t provide any evidence to support your lies so in desperation you post a disney cartoon. Why do you continue to do this to yourself.

  15. Well, well. “Labour Renaissance”? Ever heard of it? This is very interesting. As they say, follow the money.

    1. Hmmm….

      @8:50

      English Labour Network – Founding Supporters: Sam Tarry (Supporting in a personal capacity – **Whatever that means**)

      I’ve heard his name being bandied about as a lefty… Got questions to answer if he’s part of this clique.

  16. Characterisitic of narcissists who think they and they alone are justified in any means to achieve power. As for Steve H yes membership may have gone down in the lead up to 2019 election and I’m sure you know why and thats Brexit. That factor would have done for any Labour leader.

    1. bedroc56 – Corbyn’s own actions betrayed the trust that he enjoyed in 2017

Leave a Reply to AndrewCancel reply

Discover more from SKWAWKBOX

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading