PROPOSED SUPERANNUATION FUND.
By a coincidence it came about that the two big federations in the Scottish Co-operative movement were called upon to consider the question of the superannuation of their employees about the same time. It was in the month of August 1912 that the question was raised in the U.C.B.S. boardroom. Mr Miller, the Shettleston representative on the board, who had given notice some time earlier, moved at the committee meeting held on 2nd August “That we consider the possibility of forming a compulsory contributory superannuation fund for all employees, with a compulsory retiral at sixty-five years of age.” This motion, which was seconded by Mr M‘Lean, was agreed to, and it was remitted to the finance committee, manager, and cashier to prepare a scheme for submission to the board.
It is difficult to say whether the two things had any relation, but at anyrate it is remarkable that at the quarterly meeting of the S.C.W.S. which took place in September of the same year a motion for the appointment of a committee to consider the superannuation of directors and employees and to prepare a scheme was given notice of by Kinning Park Society.
At the quarterly meeting of the Baking Society which was held in June 1913 a draft scheme was submitted by the directors for the consideration and provisional approval of the delegates, the chairman stating that if this was done the scheme would be submitted to an actuary for his report on the financial proposals.
Delay was moved on behalf of Kinning Park Society, in order that the societies should have an opportunity of submitting amendments. On the other hand, those who favoured giving the board the provisional approval they asked for argued that the proper time to submit amendments was after the actuary had considered the financial proposals and had come to a decision as to their soundness or otherwise. Disapproval of the whole proposal was also moved, but eventually the motion for delay became the finding of the meeting.
The proposals of the committee were most elaborate. They proposed that all employees who had been in regular employment by the Society for six months and who were in the employment of the Society at the date of commencing the fund, if they were sixteen years of age or upwards and not over fifty years of age in the case of males or forty-five years of age in the case of females, should be members of the fund. The proposed scale of contributions to the scheme was 5 per cent. of the wages or salary received, and contributors were to be eligible at sixty years of age to retire on pension if they so desired. At the age of sixty-five for males and fifty for females they would be eligible to receive annuities ranging from 25 per cent. of their salaries, after ten years’ payment of contributions, to 85 per cent. of their salaries after having paid contributions for fifty-one years. To assist in launching the scheme it was proposed that the Society should make an initial contribution of £10,000. It was also proposed that the superannuation fund should be managed by a committee of seven, which committee should consist of the chairman and three directors for the time being of the U.C.B.S. and three representatives of the employees, who must have at least three years’ service with the Society.
When the scheme was brought forward again at the September meeting of the Society one of the amendments sent in was from St George Society, and called for the rejection of the scheme in its entirety. The motion to reject the scheme was seconded by a representative of the employees, who referred to the “autocratic” methods of the directors in adopting this scheme and bringing it forward without consulting the workers. The result was that the scheme was disapproved. The scheme which was brought forward by the S.C.W.S. for the superannuation of their employees suffered the same fate.