Update on Save university pensions, and save the planet. This is a crowdfunded legal action separate from the UCU pension dispute. It may be of interest to members and non-members who are in the USS scheme. Updates published on behalf of the team at savepensionsandplanet.org.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As you’ll have seen, UCU members just voted by 85% to “note” the statement between UUK and UCU on restoring pension benefits and reducing contributions (by how much, we do not yet know!).

Of course, we know that the reason why USS directors suddenly started predicting surpluses (not nonsense deficits), why they changed the pension asset growth assumption from 0.0% above inflation to 0.29%, and now 1.8% above inflation for 30 years (to get those surpluses), why the failed CEO Bill Galvin resigned, and why they say they could restore benefits, is that we have sued them for their catastrophic failure. It’s great that UUK and UCU have done a joint statement, but we’re not yet done with the USS directors.

The USS directors didn’t suddenly have a change of heart. They didn’t suddenly say, “Eureka – there is no deficit”! They didn’t suddenly find the markets had improved after the Truss mini-budget, after the UK’s growth outlook was worse than Russia, or after the USS itself lost £450m in Russian investments following Putin’s criminal war on Ukraine.

No, we sued them. And we got leave to go to the Court of Appeal. Even though we did not win in the High Court, they know we’ve shone a torch on them. This very public pressure, the prospect of personal responsibility for the first time in the directors’ careers, this case that all the university employers could see, forced them to change. Together with everyone’s work, everyone’s solidarity, and everyone being on picket lines, your contribution to this court case is making a difference. Remember, the UCU Higher Education Sector Conference (HESC) and the UCU National Executive Committee (NEC) and dozens of UCU branches across the UK have agreed to support our case. However, the General Secretary has refused to do this, and so far, despite what was agreed at Conference and the NEC’s instructions, UCU national has not funded or publicised our case.

We still need to get a legally binding agreement on USS. UCU and UUK have agreed to restore benefits if it can be done “sustainably”. They have agreed to “explore” restoring pension benefits needlessly cut in April 2022. The USS directors cannot be forced to act or even be removed by UUK or UCU. The USS directors changed the USS Ltd constitution so that the only people who can remove existing board members are the board members themselves! Therefore it is absolutely essential that we take the case to the Court of Appeal to get the best possible, legally binding USS agreement.

So we still need to go to the Court of Appeal. Help us:

• raise the final £120k – 90% of donations, have been from small contributions;
• ask your branch for Ewan and Neil to come to a special or general meeting to talk about the case;
• ask your branch to circulate a call for donations to all members (even if the General Secretary won’t listen to the NEC and HESC);
• by considering giving another £15 – if everyone who’s already donated gave again, we’d make what we need;
• get in touch if you have more ideas for fundraising, especially if you have contacts at environmental groups that could be interested in the case for divesting fossil fuels, and ending climate risk.

Thanks once again for all your help!

Best wishes,
Ewan and Neil

Note: This is a crowdfunded legal action separate from the UCU pension dispute. It may be of interest to members and non-members who are in the USS scheme. Updates published on behalf of the team at savepensionsandplanet.org.

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for supporting the USS campaign.

We’re making excellent progress with the crowdfund and are about 65% of the way there. To finish this, we need your help! Almost 90% of the funding for the case has come from almost 10,000 donations from members, £10, £20, or £50 from individual members. We need to wrap up the fundraising so that we can focus on the legal arguments.

Please support the case by:

• • Donating at https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-pensions-and-planet/
  • Asking your union branch to support the case using our model motion
  • Printing some posters to put up in your school or department; we’ve got one on divesting fossil fuels, one on reversing the pension cuts, and one with more details
  • Sending a message to your team, department or school asking them to support the case
  • Following us on Twitter
  • Tweeting about the case with our model tweets
  • Sharing our website at https://savepensionsandplanet.org

UUK, UCU, and USS negotiations – this case is still essential

Do the recent statements from UUK and UCU, which note the possibility of benefit restoration, mean we don’t need to go to the Court of Appeal? No, taking the case to the Court of Appeal is still essential. These statements were made and are likely only possible because of the USS legal action.

A judgement from the Court of Appeal would demonstrate that the USS directors, who run the scheme on our behalf, must act within the law and fulfil their legal obligations to members. If the case is not heard in the Court of Appeal, the directors will conclude that they are unlikely to face any meaningful legal challenge from members. They, and TPR are likely to return to their pre-2021 strategy of ramping up scheme costs to close the DB scheme. The only way to prevent this is by hearing the case in the Court of Appeal.

Please support the case with whatever you can at https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-pensions-and-planet/, so we can win in the Court of Appeal.

As ever, please let me know if you’d rather not receive further emails.

All the best,
Neil, Ewan and the rest of the team