A whopping 26% Clawback #fightingforfairness
Yvonne joined Midland bank in 1976, just after State Deduction was introduced. She remembers her first day at Finchley Road as if it was only yesterday, and how welcoming everyone was. That was fortunate as, for a young lady straight from school, she was very nervous. What she cannot recall is pensions being mentioned at all in those early years. The early years were reasonably happy, and working on the counter meant she met lots of interesting people.
However, the introduction of targets, takeover by HSBC, and everyone expected to do more soon took any shine off the job. Fellow staff, especially managers, became a bit more abrupt, and she felt she had stopped being seen as a person and was instead just a number. As a front line cashier, she was in a vulnerable position, and was twice held up by masked gunmen. The fear and nightmares which followed resulting in time off work due to ill health. Regrettably, support by management was lip service only, and questions about how soon could she return to work contributed to her having a breakdown. After 28 years of being asked to do more and more, mostly as unpaid overtime, she chose to take ill health retirement and look elsewhere for work.
Whilst not well paid, at least she was appreciated a bit more. The small lump sum she took at retirement has long gone, settling debts and helping her to have a bit of a life. Now aged 60, she lives alone and is struggling on a pension of less than £5,000 a year. And before long, she will lose £1,460 in clawback, a whopping 26% of her pension. She knows that she will struggle to live just day to day
Yvonne feels it is totally unfair that the stoppage from her small pension is the same amount as her boss, his boss and so on up the line. This when it is such a high percentage of her small pension, yet a much smaller percentage for them, and may not even be missed.
