On June 13, 2024, De Unie held pension negotiations with your employer and with the other unions. Subjects of the negotiations are:
- The new pension scheme
- Transition of pensions accrued in the ING CDC Pension Fund (ICP) to the new scheme
- Transition of pensions accrued in the ‘old’ ING Pension Fund (PFI).
The current pension plan, in which you are presently accruing pension, does not comply with the new Pensions Act (Wtp). As of January 1, 2028, the current pension plan may no longer be implemented.
Our position
De Unie has drafted a memorandum of principles. This is our basis for the negotiations. You can read the memorandum of principles here.
In the negotiations we started with the choice of contract form. De Unie proposes to base the new pension plan on the flexible contribution plan (FPR). We choose this because the majority of our members indicate that they consider it important to have a say on their own pensions. With this form of contract as a starting point, we are trying to reach agreement with the other parties
Employee control
An important step is the concrete implementation of employee control. The parties will have to discuss this further because it became clear on June 13 that we are not yet on the same page.
De Unie wants to optimize the say of the employees. There are two important conditions that first must be fulfilled:
- the pension fund offers a good standard and
- the employees receive good choice guidance.
If these conditions are properly met, we trust that employees will be able to make their own responsible choices or decide to follow the pension fund’s good standard. Not all parties to the collective bargaining agreement share our opinion about the extent to which freedom of choice is desirable. Here we will have to try to reach joint agreement.
“Invaren”
There are more important issues that CLA parties have yet to decide on. The issue of “invaren” has not yet been finalized. For now, the parties are assuming that pensions accrued in ICP will be brought into the new scheme. This is the premise of the Wtp and seems to be in the best interest of the employees. As a result, the new pension scheme would start immediately with a larger capital and may achieve better results. When entering the new scheme, the buffer (currently around 30% of fund assets) must be distributed. This must be done in a balanced way, taking into account the interests of the participants. The CLA parties are consulting with the pension fund about this.
PFI
The closed pension fund PFI has also indicated that it wants to switch to the new pension system. We are also discussing the distribution of the buffer with this fund. The question of whether “invaren” is equally in the interest of all groups of participants is also an important factor. For a closed fund such as PFI, the Wtp offers more room to refrain from “invaren” if this cannot be done in a balanced way.
Next negotiations
The next pension negotiations will be on July 1, 2024. The aim is to reach a negotiation result then.
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Contact
Do you have questions about this message? If so, please contact me. This can be done by sending an e-mail to: inge.de.vries@unie.nl
