UCU: TPS Survivor Pensions

Motion

Motion text: Congress notes:
1. That recipients of TPS survivor pensions, where the TPS pensioner retired before 2007, are contacted annually by TPS and required to declare whether or not they have remarried or formed a new relationship and lose the pension if they have done so;
2. That this requirement can cause considerable distress to the survivor in receipt of a TPS pension;
3. That the withdrawal of the TPS survivor pension can cause financial hardship.
Congress believes:
a. That survivor pensions should not be withdrawn on remarriage or the formation of a new partnership;
b. That such a provision is an invasion of privacy and undermines the right to marriage and to a personal life.
Congress calls on NEC to work with other teacher unions in TPS to remove this provision so that survivors of TPS members who retired before 2007 are treated as favourably as survivors of TPS members who retired after 2007.