Former DEC employees to rally against stagnant pensions post-HP Retired Digital Equipment Corporation employees are scheduling a protest day outside of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s UK headquarters over its refusal to increase their pensions – something the corporation is not legally obliged to do. DEC – once an employer of 8,500 people in Britain – was bought by Compaq in 1998, which was …
Pensioners are a burden on them so the sooner we all kick the bucket the better.
My guess is that HP are seeing the 'triple lock' that the state pension has and the proposed increases and say...
"That will be more than enough for you plebs."
At the current rate, it won't be long before, the State Pension will be more than the DEC one... the one that I paid extra into for years in the form of AVC's.
The last increase was more than swallowed up in the extra tax I had to pay because of the state pension rise.
Posting AC but spent 20 years at DEC before being given the heave-ho in 1998.
Not sure that private pensions are really fit for purpose
In the early 90's, I spent 5 (ish) years as a programmer then switching to support. I was paid a really good wage and we had a good pension scheme (we paid in 5% and the employer paid in 10%). When I left, it was worth (in adjusted terms) about £15k p/a.
The company (more or less) left the UK and left the pension in the hands of a private pension company. That company grossly mis-managed the pension (and passed it around their group of companies, each move attracting 'fees') to such an extent that now, having been finally moved to a company that is actually good at pensions, the pension is worth about £1k p/a. When it was passed to them, it was worth about £500 p/a.. By the time I retire (9 more years!) it might get to the giddy heights of £2k p/a. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have that £2k (it'll keep me in rum if nothing else :-) ) but compared to what it might have been, it's a pittance.
The company? Since they were no longer were incorporated in the UK (the tentacle that they left behind was an entirely separate company) they basically shrugged and said "not our problem".
"I couldn't understand why the pension hadn't increased in value,"
The employee pension didn't increase because the scheme documents didn't force it to, and the employees individually or collectively weren't smart enough to understand the implications?
Also, during the 15 or so years I contributed to the DEC UK defined benefit pension scheme, which may or may not have been the same scheme as applied to the many manufacturing etc folks in Scotland (AYO? SQF? etc), the numbers buried in the small print in the annual pension fund report frequently showed that the investment managers frequently underperformed not just their targets but also the markets as a whole.
"My IBM pension has increased in value since I left 8 years ago, so I was missing something,"
Clearly.
"The problem is that the pemsion fund's rules didn't include cost-of-living increases"
If it was a fund then the pension would increase in line with the performance of the fund's investments.
I can't find anything that shows that it is an invested fund, from what I can see it looks more like a defined benefit pension like the NHS pension where you give up part of your salary in return for the promise that they will find money from somewhere to pay you when you retire.
"cost-of-living increase"
Where is the money for this meant to come from?
I have a pension investment fund in dollars as a result of working in the USA, back in the early 90's it was about $150k but then they said there had been an investment issue and my fund had going down to $40k ... investment funds make a lot of money for the people running the organization, not the customers.
Well, you're retired, so you have the time for it.
HP, on the other hand, couldn't care less. You no longer contribute to HP's reputation. The fact that your work built HP up to some heights no longer counts, HP has squandered that capital long ago.
I sympathize, but HP doesn't and DEC and Mr Hewlett are long gone.
You are now reaping the benefits of unrestrained capitalism.
Maybe vote for some social security in the years to come ?
P.S. : saying that from a country that is actively destroying its own social security and medical network, to transition everything to private offices, so maybe we'll have a beer together in the not-too-distant future.
FCO - final item on the agenda - shall we grant a discretionary increase to the ex-DEC pensioners?
CEO - Do we have to?
FCO - legally, no, but it won't cost us much if we did
CEO - why are you wasting my time with this. Of course not, DEC used to be our biggest competitor
We Are HPE - Our culture defines us
Our culture is what defines Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a company: how we act, how we treat others, and how we conduct business. Our employees ignite our culture by continuously demonstrating bias for action, being innovators at heart, and always putting partnerships first.
That's what HPE says about itself on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/hewlett-packard-enterprise/life/cbd04b62-ee73-461d-b09d-1885aa9e5ab9/
Clearly, when no longer an employee or partner......We can see how they treat "Others"
Jc
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