ONE in three female workers in Scotland will suffer from changes to public sector pensions, union leaders claim.
The claim came as Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told delegates at the STUC Women’s Conference in Glasgow that the Scottish Government “deeply resents” being held to ransom by Westminster over the pensions increase issue.
Ms Sturgeon also said ministers supported public sector reform but said there would be no compulsory redundancies “as far as we can control that”.
The conference is being held as Scotland moves towards major industrial action on November 30 over public sector pension hikes, including the first full walkout by teachers in a generation.
On the second day of the conference, delegates heard that Scottish women would be disproportionately affected by Government public service pension proposals.
The STUC said more than two-thirds of Scotland’s public sector workers are women and that one in three of all female workers was affected. Of the Scottish unions which have declared in favour of action, PCS, Unison and EIS, 68% of the workers balloted are women.
Speaking at the conference, Ms Sturgeon said: “The Scottish Government totally opposes the proposed increase in pension contributions. I don’t accept it’s about the sustainability of pensions.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article