This election is important to you
From Mnd
In the 70 or so years that most of us will, I hope, enjoy in this world, there are at most 40 years available to be an IBM sales rep. Today, with the idea of lifetime employment apparently outdated, the average employee will stay for just five years before moving on. But that is still time to make a significant contribution to your pension pot.
Even if you’re planning to leave the company in the near future and thus become what the pensions people call a deferred member, this election should be important to you, because the people you elect will have regard to your interests, even after you’ve left.
You may be bored with voting on company matters. It may seem little more than two years since you last voted in the pension elections. That’s because it is little more than two years since you last voted in the pension elections. You may have believed at the time, as we all did, that you were electing directors to stay in their posts for three years. But no. This election has had to be brought forward to comply with legislation that requires pension trusts to switch from member-elected directors to member-nominated directors.
But all the key elements of the MND legislation could have been put in place for the 2005 elections, which would have allowed the current incumbents to serve their full three years and thus make better use of the costly training they underwent. Given the huge uphill task that new trustee-directors face in learning the ropes—not just actuarial and financial, but legal as well—it is very unfortunate that their final year, the year in which they become most effective, should be cancelled.
It was the company’s decision not to incorporate these elements—for instance, by removing the ban on elected directors aged over 67, which is no longer allowed under Age Discrimination laws. To my knowledge, no-one has apologised for this cock-up to the voters who thought they were voting MEDs to stay in office for three years, or to the retirees who couldn’t stand as candidates in 2005 because of the unnecessary age limit.
Just 17 candidates stood for that election, whereas there are many more, I believe, in this one. The term of office will be four years, not three. So provided the Trust takes a progressive stance and stays ahead of legislation, it won’t be troubling you for your vote again until 2012. It may be February, you may have flu, or you may be preparing for a skiing holiday, but this election is worth thinking about. It’s important.
You’ll be voting in four member-nominated directors. The full board of the trust consists of 12 directors. The other eight are all appointed by the company. Since decisions by the board are taken on a simple majority vote, the four MNDs cannot, on their own, get any proposal approved. But they can, of course, solicit the support of other directors. And if all four MNDs vote against a company proposal, that should start the alarm bells ringing. You would deserve to know about that. The trust needs to be not just progressive, but more open, too.
