Focus on Maritime Pensions Newsletter
January/February 2023
A message from the National Secretary, Darren Procter The Maritime Pensions Campaign has been running since November 2019 and while this initiative has put pensions on the Maritime agenda, something I believe was lacking when I became National Secretary in 2018, I fully recognise that as a union we need to be doing more to improve all Maritime members retirement outcomes. However, to improve our members’ workplace pensions we also need to put in place a long lasting and vibrant strategy which aims at improving not only our representatives understanding of an often “marmite” subject but also our members. Therefore, over the next year we will be promoting and engaging directly with our members via four pension newsletters starting with this one and a dedicated Maritime three-day pension course to be held at the RMT Educational Centre in Doncaster. We will also be engaging with Maritime employers to seek pension improvements and hold workplace meetings with our members to discuss pensions. The RMT Pension Officer, Paul Norris, and I will be in attendance at these meetings to talk pensions and answer your questions.
Focus on Maritime Pe
While this campaign is predominantly about improving and developing pension understanding across the maritime section of the union we also will continue to challenge those employers who breach Auto Enrolment legislation either by not enrolling their employees into a qualifying occupational pension scheme or by employing non-UK low paid seafarers to avoid their statutory obligations. I can advise that we have already brought to the attention of the Pensions Regulator such breaches and will use the RMT Parliamentary Group to expose those employers who exploit non-UK workers to avoid their pension obligation and indeed paying the National Minimum Wage. 2023 will no doubt be another challenging year for many workers across RMT but if we can gain the
pension improvements and understanding we are striving for then the long term future will be a better place for our maritime members.
Darren Proctor, National Secretary
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