The result of strike action ballots from unions representing steel workers at Tata Steel Europe will be revealed late on Friday. Reports said chief executive of Tata Steel's European operations Karl Koehler sent an open letter to workers on Friday, urging them not to support the industrial action.
"Our actions have been aimed at developing an affordable and sustainable pension scheme through changes that are fair and balanced for all those who work for us...,” the report quoted Koehler as saying.
"The past few years have seen the UK, and most of the world, go through the worst financial crisis... The result has been a huge shortfall of up to £2bn, which is clearly not sustainable," said the letter. Though ballot results are due on Friday, Unite trade union members are voting until next week. Calls made by Business Standard to Unite officials on the ballot results went unanswered.
"The changes we've proposed to our UK pension scheme will help protect the benefits colleagues have already earned. They will also, crucially, ensure a good pension for our people in the future, which is both affordable and sustainable,” the letter said.
"Of course we looked at keeping the final salary scheme running, a scheme which by today's standards is a very generous package. Indeed, we initially proposed reasonable measures to the unions that would have addressed the huge shortfall while also being fair and balanced to all colleagues across the age range. Sadly, this was rejected by the trade unions. The unions continue to insist on keeping unaffordable early retirement enhancements in the pension scheme which would favour our older colleagues - but would be to the detriment of younger members of the team. I believe the unions' proposals would be unfair and unbalanced. Because of this, we have been unable to agree on a way forward. But we have always said we are open to talks and further negotiations with the unions and that continues to be the case," the letter said.
