Teaching union accepts pension deal

A teaching union has decided to accept the Government's controversial pension reforms, it has been announced.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), which represents 160,000 teachers, said the move followed the results of a poll of members in which 91.6% of respondents voted in favour of the proposals.

ATL president Alice Robinson said: "ATL members are realists. They recognise how tough times are and that the Government is determined not to give any further ground.

"Although the Government's final offer does not give us everything we wanted, it is the best deal we could get in the current economic climate. And members do not want a significantly worse deal imposed on them if they rejected this one."

ATL members took part in November's strike by up to two million public sector workers in protest at the pension changes.

Despite previously striking on pension reforms,
 the ATL has decided to accept the
Government's controversial pension reforms

The announcement means there will not be a repeat of such a huge strike, although leaders of other unions are discussing further walkouts because of continued opposition to the Government's reforms.

Mary Bousted, ATL's general secretary, said: "The pensions talks and negotiations were incredibly tough. The Government did not want to make concessions and we had a hard fight to get a fairer deal for teachers.

"It was only because ATL members, along with the members of six other education unions, were prepared to show their strength of feeling by going on strike and lobbying their MPs that we managed to force the Government to shift its position and start talks to get an improved offer.

"I am really proud of the courage ATL members showed when they took part in the union's first national strike in its 127-year history.

"We are still not happy about the pension contribution rates for 2012 to 2014, on which the Government refused to negotiate. But we will negotiate hard over the rates from 2015 onwards."

©Press Association 2012

Greece, creditors on verge of clinching debt deal

Greece and its private creditors said on Saturday they were piecing together the final elements of a debt swap and expected to have a deal ready next week, essential for sealing a new bailout and avoiding an uncontrolled default.

Greece and its private creditors said on Saturday they
were piecing together the final elements of a debt swap and expected to have a deal ready next week

After muddling through round after round of inconclusive talks, the negotiations are in their final phase - though it appeared unlikely that a preliminary deal would be secured in time for a European Union summit on Monday.

Greek bondholders said the two sides were finalising a deal along the lines of a proposal made by Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of euro zone finance ministers.

The proposal made by Jean-Claude Juncker,
 the chairman of euro zone finance ministers

The bondholders' comments suggested creditors had accepted Juncker's demand for a coupon, or interest rate, of below 4 percent on new, longer-dated bonds that Athens will swap for existing debt.

The coupon had been the main stumbling block in the talks, with euro zoneministers rejecting private creditors' demand for a coupon of at least 4 percent - above the 3.5 percent level Greece and its European partners had been holding out for.

"Next week we will be in a position to complete the debt swap," Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said, citing significant progress at Saturday's talks. "We are really one step away from the final deal."

He confirmed that the two sides were working along the "exact framework" provided by euro zone finance ministers.

Charles Dallara, chief of the Institute of International Finance that negotiates on behalf of banks and insurers, is due to leave Athens on Sunday but will remain in contact with Greek authorities, the IIF said.

Still, for Athens, progress on the debt swap is at risk of being overshadowed by increasingly problematic talks with its foreign lenders, whose inspectors are in town demanding unpopular reforms that no politician wants to be linked to.

DENSE, DIFFICULT AND CRUCIAL

Crushed by 350 billion euros of debt and running out of cash quickly, Greece is scrambling to appease the "troika" of its official lenders - the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - and stitch up a deal with private creditors simultaneously.

Unimpressed with Athens dragging its feet on reforms, the troika has said they could hold up aid if more is not done to make the Greek economy more efficient.

"It's all very dense, difficult and crucial," a Greek finance ministry official said.

The IIF are one of Greece's lenders

European paymaster Germany is pushing for Athens to relinquish control over its budget policy to European institutions as part of discussions over a second rescue package, a European source told Reuters.

With many Greeks blaming Germans for the austerity medicine their country has been forced to swallow, officials in Athens dismissed the idea as out of the question. "The government stresses that this responsibility belongs exclusively to the Greek government," said government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis.

"The government has made a series of steps to improve the effectiveness of the public administration and a closer monitoring of the efforts to achieve fiscal targets.".

The European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-country bloc, said it wanted the Greek government to maintain autonomy.

"The Commission is committed to further reinforcing its monitoring capacity and is currently developing its capacity on the ground," a spokesman said. "But executive tasks must remain the full responsibility of the Greek Government, which is accountable before its citizens and its institutions. That responsibility lies on their shoulders and it must remain so."

A government source in Berlin said Germany's proposal was aimed not just at Greece but also at other struggling euro zone members which receive aid and are unable to make good on their obligations. "All options can obviously be introduced only with the agreement of, for example, the Greeks themselves," he added.

NEW BONDS FOR OLD

The debt swap, in which private creditors take a 50 percent cut in the nominal value of their Greek holdings in exchange for cash and new bonds, is also a prerequisite for the country to secure a 130-billion-euro rescue plan drawn up last year.

The two sides have broadly agreed that new bonds under the swap would have a 30-year maturity, but the talks ran into trouble over the coupon and whether the ECB and other public creditors must take losses on their holdings.

A deal, aimed at chopping 100 billion euros off Greece's debt load, must be sealed in about three weeks at the latest as Greece has to repay 14.5 billion euros of debt on March 20.

Otherwise Greece could sink into an uncontrolled default that might spread turmoil across the euro zone and tip the global economy back into recession.

"There is progress"- IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Saturday that euro zone members were making progress to overcome their crisis but must do more to strengthen their financial firewall to stop the crisis spreading, adding the IMF was ready to help.

"There is progress as we see it," Lagarde told a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum inDavos.

"But it is critical that the euro zone members actually develop a clear, simple, firewall that can operate both to limit the contagion and to provide this sort of act of trust in the euro zone so that the financing needs of that zone can actually be met."

Concern has also grown in recent days that the debt swap may not do enough to get the country's debt reduction plan back on track, and that Greece's European partners will be forced to stump up funds to cover the shortfall.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday that Greece's international lenders thought Athens would need 145 billion euros of public money from the euro zone for its second bailout, rather than the planned 130 billion euros.

The magazine said the extra money was needed because of the deteriorating economic situation in Greece, echoing a Reuters report on Thursday.

Greece is in its fifth year of recession, and hopes of an end to the crisis in the near term have virtually gone, because of the combination of squabbling politicians, rising social anger and its inability to push through badly needed reforms.


©Reuters 2012

PCS WARNS OF NEW PENSIONS ACTION

Leaders of the biggest Civil Service union today confirmed their rejection of the Government's final offer on public sector pensions and called for fresh industrial action if improvements are not offered.

The executive of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) also warned of legal action if the union is excluded from any future negotiations.

PCS said unions representing around a million workers in the Civil Service, education, local government and health, had either rejected or refused to sign up to the Government's offer.

Teaching unions have refused to go along with the proposed deal while sections of Unite have rejected it, as well as the PCS.

There had been no movement on the core issues since last November's strike by up to two million workers, said the PCS executive, which agreed that further co-ordinated action should be organised unless more talks are held.

General secretary Mark Serwotka said: "From the very start ministers have quite obviously tried to suffocate the pensions talks, to bully and mislead, and to impose their will on millions of civil servants, teachers, council staff and health workers.

"We have consistently called for proper negotiations on the key issues of paying more and working longer for less, but the Government has refused at every point, leaving us with no choice but to oppose what is nothing more than a political attempt to make the least culpable pay the highest price for the failings of the banks.

"We have told ministers we expect to be included in any future discussions. But we are clear that, with no significant movement since two million public servants took strike action together on November 30, further co-ordinated industrial action will be necessary to stop these unfair and entirely unnecessary plans."

Other unions have decided to put the offer to a ballot of members or to continue discussions with a view to holding a vote on whether to end the bitter dispute.

Unions involved in the long-running dispute will meet tomorrow to discuss their next move.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: "The decision by the PCS remains disappointing.

"It is even more disappointing when the leader of the PCS union did not turn up to a single one of the 14 formal meetings with Civil Service unions to discuss the pension reforms.

"The talk of more strike action by the PCS will not achieve anything.

"We welcome the news from those unions that have said they will continue with pension discussions on the basis of the heads of agreement, with a view to securing a final proposal that can be put to their members.

"These heads of agreements represent affordable long-term pension reform which is both fair to the Civil Service workforce and to the taxpayer."

A PCS spokesman replied: "What is disappointing is that, instead of talking to us about the key issues, the Cabinet Office is continuing to peddle half-truths at the same time as threatening to exclude us from future discussions."

Meanwhile, leaders of 25,000 Unite members in the Ministry of Defence and other Government departments rejected the pensions offer today.

General secretary Len McCluskey said: "It is clear from the decisions of the three executive committees representing our public sector members that the current proposals are unfair.

"The message to ministers is that the wide-scale protests on November 30 highlighted the serious concerns that public sector employees have about being forced to pay more, work longer and receive less when they retire.

"Unite again calls on ministers to enter into real, genuine and meaningful negotiations to reach a fair and equitable solution."


©Press Association 2012