If you go on strike, you're bound to think about the loss of pay - but have you thought about how it might affect your pension?
The two key things we use to work out your benefits are pay and membership, and going on strike could certainly affect your membership, and in some cases, your pay too.
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If you are on strike for one day or more, then the period doesn't count towards your membership unless you choose to pay extra to make it count - we'll tell you later how this works.
So if you are on strike for one day, and don't pay it back, then you lose the benefits relating to that one day's membership. For someone on £12,000 a year, a one day strike break loses them roughly 41p a year in pension and £1.23 lump sum (at today's pay rates).
The only pay we are interested in for working out pension benefits is your final pay - normally the pay over your last 365 days. But if you have been on strike approaching retirement, as an example for one day and you haven't bought this day in, then in the last calendar year you only have 364 days membership. To bring you up to the 365 days, we have to count an earlier day, and this will typically have a slightly lower pay attached to it. This in turn will very slightly reduce your final pay and so very slightly reduce your pension and lump sum retirement grant.
The extra contributions cost 16% of your pay (rather than your usual 5% or 6%). And there is a deadline too - if you want to pay the extra you must tell your employer¹s pensions officer within 30 days of coming back to work (or longer if your employer allows). You will find a handy form you can print off and fill in on the next page.
Simply do nothing! If your employer doesn't hear from you within the deadline, they will assume you don't want to pay it back, and it will appear as a break on your pension records.
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