A little while back, BMW UK workers at MINI and Rolls Royce plants were striking over pension disputes with the Bavarian brand. Last month, Unite, the union backing BMW UK employees, threatened even more strikes after BMW’s previous pension plan offer was rejected. However, BMW has revised its pension offer to UK employees and it’s now been accepted by the employees and Unite. So threats of continued strikes have ended.
“We believe that our pension proposals are fair and will help to ensure our competitiveness as a business, which is ultimately in the long-term interest of all our employees.” said a BMW spokesperson in a recent statement.
More than 80 percent of Unite members approve of the new pension plan from BMW, which now offers up to £25,000 in transitional payments. BMW UK employees will join a defined contribution scheme, starting October 2017, which has a company contribution of up to 16 percent.
“It’s testament to the resolve of Unite members and their solidarity that the carmaker was forced to more than triple these payments and give additional guarantees.” said Fred Hanna, Unite national officer.
The important part of this is that BMW and its UK employees are happy. Its UK employees are very important to BMW and its brands MINI and Rolls Royce. Both brands take a lot of pride in the fact that they’re built in the UK and not Germany, at least mostly. MINI and Rolls employees have great pride in building cars in the country where they were founded.
[Source: BBC]
