The Great Pensions Robbery

Robert Maxwell was a crook who stole from his employees' pension funds - but he had nothing on George Osborne who, within weeks of becoming Chancellor had raided the future pensions of millions of workers, in the public and private sectors, of billions of pounds. He did this by changing the future basis of uprating our pension benefits from the Retail Price Index (RPI) to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

This dramatic move had been in the manifesto of neither party to the Coalition of millionaires - indeed it directly contradicted promises made by all three main parties before last year's General Election.

Estimates of the cumulative loss for those of us not yet retired range upwards from 15% (or almost one pound in every six which we had been promised for the rest of our lives).

This is one element of the Government's attack upon pensions which not only applies across the whole public sector but also unites public and private sector workers. It is a move they show no sign of even considering stepping back from.

This is an opportunity to try to use the e-petition site in the interests of working people rather than for reactionary knee jerk populism - the petition is at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1535.

All trade unionists, and indeed everyone who believes promises should be kept, should sign!