TUC raps bosses 'luxury' pensions

The TUC has rapped the top rate pensions paid to company directors, while workers are asked to work longer for smaller pensions.

A TUC report claimed that 8 out of 10 of the UK's top companies provide directors with pensions that can pay out in full at 60 and are worth, on average, 26 times those of most employees.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "Britain's boardrooms are secure in a pensions ivory tower. Top bosses can expect to live long retirements on luxury pensions that are far more generous than their employees can expect.

"They should stop lecturing the rest of us on how we should get smaller pensions from a higher retirement age. After these revelations it is hard to see how their voice can carry much weight in the pensions debate."

However, the CBI claimed that employers had every right to comment on the pensions issue as companies paid out billions of pounds in tax.

The TUC's analysis of the annual reports of over 50 of the UK's leading companies published today showed that 98% of their final salary pension schemes for executives have a normal retirement age of less than 65. Under 80% of the company schemes all directors could retire at 60 without their pension being reduced. Only in one company did some - though not all - executives have to work until they are 65.

The research also showed that directors' final salary pensions are most likely to build up twice as fast as the most common rate for employees.

TUC research showed that directors of the UK's 100 most important companies have amassed pensions worth a total of £900 million which, on average, would pay out £167,000 a year.

The TUC highlighted that this was over 26 times the national average pension of £129 a week, £6,344 a year, and was over 30 times the average public sector pension.

(SP)