Protecting pensions

He joined TASS, an engineering union that later became part of Unite, shortly after starting the job at Stevenage, but didn't become active in the union until 1994, when BAE sold the plant to GEC Marconi and workers had to leave the BAE pension scheme. He explains: "BAE at the time was sitting on a very large pension surplus, but they initially didn't want to let us have any of it!" The union was instrumental in getting a much better pension settlement from BAE than the one originally proposed. A few years later, BAE bought the Stevenage plant back from Marconi and again the union successfully fought for a better pension deal.

His most important union work so far was done in 2004, when Astrium was sold to EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company). Once again, the fight was about pensions. The new management planned to replace the existing final salary scheme with a money purchase scheme that would have left older employees worse off: it would have been in the financial interests of most workers over 50 to leave and take their pension payment straight away rather than to stay at the company and defer it.

Peter sees the union at Astrium as "guardians of the pension scheme". It's one of the few issues that staff would be prepared to strike over. But, thanks to Peter, it didn't come to that.

He carried out negotiations in two ways. As shop steward for the UK plant, he negotiated with management at the site in the traditional fashion. But European law gave him another way of getting the company to listen. Companies of EADS's size and international scope are obliged to establish European Works Councils. These bodies bring together workers' representatives from all the countries the company operates in, so that they can meet with management and give their views on decisions that affect them.

Peter's role as a workers' representative on the Works Council gave him access to EADS senior management in France and a chance to explain the problem with the pension scheme: that a money purchase scheme would be a financial incentive for anybody over 50 to leave sooner rather than later. In other words, the company risked losing a large proportion of its most skilled, experienced employees. Senior management saw Peter's calculations and recognized the strong business case for keeping the existing pension scheme, so they changed their plans. Existing employees would now get a final salary pension scheme that mirrored the one they'd been on before. New employees are on a hybrid scheme, a mixture of final salary and money purchase.

When EADS saw how successful the mirror scheme was at Astrium, they extended the concept to the company's other subsidiaries, such as Airbus and McAlpine Helicopters. Peter believes that bringing a social conscience to bear on business decisions is a big part of European culture, which is why it was possible to get a good, lasting pension deal from French management. But his two-pronged approach, speaking to senior EADS management through the European forum as well as negotiating at the UK plant, must have been a major contributing factor.