Read our latest updates

Our pensions aren’t saved yet! A very conditional win and what we need to do next
20 March 2023

Our aims

We’re suing the directors of USS, the £80bn university staff pension fund, to save university pensions and divest fossil fuels. We’re going to the Court of Appeal in June 2023. We need you: donate to help us win!

University staff’s pensions were cut on average by 35% in 2022 (see the £1000s you lost in this modeller), and are still invested in gas, oil + coal despite climate risks and damage.

Our aims are:

1. Legal responsibility. The USS directors must be held personally responsible for the damage they’ve caused: they’ve breached their duties under the Companies Act 2006 by failing to act for proper purposes, wasting money, and acting against university staff interests.
2. Enhance pensions. From April 2022 to 2024, the directors’ cuts will cost scheme members £7000 each, and the harm continues. In April 2022, USS managers assumed fund assets would grow at 0.29% p.a. above CPI inflation for 30 years, predicted a nonsense “deficit”, and used this as a pretext for cuts. Since we took action, the failed CEO Bill Galvin resigned, a new growth assumption of 1.8% p.a. has been used, and surpluses have been reported. All benefits, past and future, must be restored, and our pension rights must be enhanced.
3. Protect equality. The USS directors’ cuts put women, young people, and minority groups at a particular disadvantage. USS published no equality impact assessment. The directors must abide by the Equality Act 2010, and end their discriminatory attacks on university staff.
4. Stop the squander. While driving mass cuts, the USS directors super-inflated operating costs from £40m a year in 2010 to £160m a year in 2020: spent on asset manager fees, and shiny offices for themselves. This cost inflation must be reversed, and USS managers must invest our money prudently, or get out.  
5. End climate damage. USS directors failed to divest fossil fuels, even though gas, oil and coal have been the worst performing asset class, they have no future, and USS members said they want to divest in 2020. Fossil fuels are stranded assets and risk significant financial detriment. USS needs a credible plan to divest and vote our shares in all companies to achieve 100% clean energy, now.
6. Credible governance reform. We need a USS board that is majority-elected, not one where crony failures appoint each other. Currently there are 4 UUK, 3 UCU, and 5 ‘co-opted’ directors who represent City cronies, banks and fossil fuel interests. The directors amended the USS rules in 2019 so that only the directors could remove themselves. But it is our money, not theirs, and it is paid for with our work. USS directors must be majority-elected by us.
   

Follow us on Twitter