For years now, members of the Government have been campaigning against industry super. Now using the cover of Coronavirus, they are looking to take a sledgehammer to workers’ retirement savings.
More than two million Australians were forced to raid their superannuation just to get by throughout the crisis, and hundreds of thousands of Australians are now out of work.
Workers now have less time to save more for retirement and face a Government intent on kicking the ladder out from underneath them.
Before this crisis, the superannuation guarantee rate of 9.5 per cent was not delivering dignity in retirement. Systemic issues in the system cause women to retire into poverty, with just half the superannuation of men.
There’s a growing divide between those who have super and those who don’t. And it’s up to us to fix it.
Australian unions won superannuation for it to be the best retirement income system in the world, and now we need to improve it to match the modern economy.
The superannuation guarantee is set in law to increase to 12%, but more needs to be done.
We need to improve the system so women stop retiring into poverty, so that gig economy workers and contractors get super, and so that no worker has their super stolen by a dodgy boss.
This government is threatening to ruin your retirement. They already cut the pension, put housing out of reach, and forced down wages. And now they’re working with the same economists and big business groups which threatened to cut super for the lowest paid workers. We can’t let them gut super.
You can help in 2 ways:
- Sign the FSU petition calling on Government to guarantee they will honour the increase to 12% here: www.actionnetwork.org/forms/stop-gutting-super
- Share your story with us. We’re looking for retired members who can share stories of how retirement is working for you – good stories so we can highlight the value of super, as well as the not so good so we can highlight where workers are falling through the cracks. We’re also looking for finance workers who’d be happy for their pic to be featured during the campaign (just like the one at the top of this email!). If you’re keen to get involved please send us an email by clicking here: fsuinfo@fsunion.org.au
Yours sincerely,
Julia Angrisano