GMB will attend a series of Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) events taking place this weekend to highlight the plight of around 700,000 women who will have to work five years longer than they should, in order to receive a state pension.
GMB Northern Region, the North East’s largest general trade union, said that the current Prime Minister, Theresa may, should be more empathetic towards those affected, given that she will celebrate her 60th birthday later this week.
GMB considers WASPI to be one of the most courageous and important organisations to be set up in many years as successive Coalition and Conservative Governments, had failed to put in place satisfactory transition measures to ease the burden of hundreds of thousands of women across the UK and many in the Northern Region, both in workplaces across the Region and at home.
The WASPI campaign has been taken all over the UK and the Northern Region including the Durham Miners’ Gala and GMB says the campaign has clearly resonated with people across income groups.
Billy Coates, GMB Northern Regional Secretary said:
“Whilst the Government has moved further to the right with the changes in personnel under the new Prime Minister, Theresa May, who is 60 this week, must show that she understands the increased burden and poverty placed on women and families across this Region and beyond.
“Whitehall has known about this issue for years but the transitional arrangements have been far from adequate. It can’t be right to just move the goalposts for women born in the mid-1950s and due to retire from 2014 onwards, to be subject to Government imposition of changes. Mrs May and other politicians of her generation are imposing rules on women that may not affect them personally. This just fuels mistrust in the political class and flies in the face of equality for a key group of women who have given this country so much”.
