ROTARY’S BID FOR A NEW ERA

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19267, 2 January 1931, Page 10

ROTARY’S BID FOR A NEW ERA

BIG PENSION SCHEME LAUNCHED IN BRITAIN. The Rotary organisation has set a stirring example to the industrial chiefs of Great Britain by launching, through the medium of 350 of its clubs throughout the country’, the most gigantic pension scheme ever devised (states the "Sunday Express”). The plan will apply to every description of trade and commerce, and will remove the dread of old age from the employees of firms, both small and large. A comfortable retirement at the age of 65 will be possible for the employees of the shop with only half a dozen hands, as well as for the employees of great factories. Months of research have been spent in perfecting the scheme, which is the joint work of the past president of the Rotary International Association for Great Britain and Ireland (Sir Chas. Mander), the present chairman (Dr H. Schofield), and the experts of four insurance companies, who will administer the scheme on behalf of all the Rotary members concerned. These companies are the Legal and General Assurance Company’, the Prudential Assurance Company, the Standard Life Assurance Company, and the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada. Pensions will be proportionate to salaries, and will range from £1 to i's for each year of service from the putting into effect of the plan. Satisfactory service given in the years before the scheme is adopted will also be recognised to the extent of a further pension calculated at half these rates. For example, a present employee aged 40, with ten years’ past service, who enters a firm at a salary of £261 and leaves at £351, will, on retirement, receive a pension of £145 per annum. If he should die in middle-age, however, all his contributions, with interest, will be paid to his next-of-kin, with a lump sum ranging from £IOO to £SOO. Various options can be exercised if the worker should wish to withdraw before pension age. The weekly cost to the employee ranges from 9d for the £l6O-a-year man to 3s 9d for one with a salary of £550. The employer pays the balance of the cost, including that which is necessary to form a fund in respect of the years preceding the introduction of the scheme. The national joint industrial council of the flourmilling industry hope tc bring a scheme of this kind into operr tion on January 1.