Why am I so angry about what happened at the @USSpensions JNC last week? Because the way #USS concluded the 2020 valuation was not in accordance with the scheme rules and undercut @UCU's influence on the JNC, possibly permanently. You need to know about this. 1/
https://twitter.com/Sam_Marsh101/status/1498562751639265280
The Joint Negotiating Committee is an oddity, unique among UK pension schemes. It was a hard-won concession extracted by the union during the formation of the scheme in the 1970s. If the misapplication of the rules by #USS is allowed to stand, I believe it is effectively dead. 2/ 
One of the key functions of the JNC is to grapple with the outcome of bad valuations, where it has to decide on benefit changes and/or contribution rate splits. #USS presents the JNC with a price, and negotiation begins. Or that's how it's supposed to work. 3/
But this time, @USSPensions did it differently. They did not set a clear price before the negotiation began. Rather, they left the price conditional on the amount of long-term support (aka 'covenant support') employers would offer the scheme. 4/
Agree to stay in the scheme for 20 years, and allow #USS to monitor your finances and have equal standing on any new debt issued? You get a low price! Refuse? The price goes way up! This approach flew in the face of the rules, and allowed UUK to game the process. 5/
It is well known that @UniversitiesUK effectively vetoed @UCU's proposals at the JNC last summer, providing covenant support only for their own proposals and sending the price of UCU's through the roof. Very poor behaviour, but facilitated by @USSpensions' rule breach. 6/
The same trick was pulled by UUK at last week's JNC. It undermined @UCU's proposals, and also allowed UUK to ensure the price of the cost-sharing of current benefits would be sky-high, allowing them to warn of the calamitous results of not cutting benefits. 7/
And, perhaps unsurprisingly, this tactic worked on the JNC chair, who chose the employers' proposals over the ramped-up price of cost-sharing and a proposal from @UCU which could no longer be assured for the costed price. 8/
So what made me so angry last week in particular? It was the way that our well-founded objections to the process were dismissed out of hand by those in power, closing ranks to protect one another and hiding behind legal advisers. It was astonishing to witness close up. 9/
The decision at last week's JNC was a stitch-up that the JNC chair should never have allowed. The fact that the board waved through the results of the botched process they implemented is predictable but unforgivable. The whole thing reeks of a breach of trust. 10/
And here's why it can't be allowed to stand: if withdrawal of covenant support is a @USSpensions-approved tactic for @UniversitiesUK, then it's game over for @UCU on the JNC. Variations on the same trick can occur at each and every valuation by UUK to game the price. 11/
What clearer case could there be that those running the scheme do not have our best interests at heart? "Secure the covenant support at all costs, and to hell with the members" seems to be a good summary. 12/
And @USSPensions will not back down on this. It will have to go to the courts. I'll be making sure that happens, and am trying to figure out whether I'm best placed to do that on or off the JNC. One things for sure: there's no point in being a member of a rigged committee. 13/13
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