Pension group is to be formed
A campaign fighting for the pension rights of women is to set up a group on Arran. The WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign has over 66,000 supporters and represents almost 3.5 million women born in the 1950s who are suffering because they were not told by the government that their state pension age would be increasing, and who now have no time to put in place alternative financial arrangements to see them through to the new state retirement age, which in some cases is now 66.
The first WASPI meeting to take place on Arran will be held on Wednesday August 23 at 6pm in the Ormidale Pavilion in Brodick.
Ann Fraser, co-ordinator from Ayrshire WASPI, will be there to assist women with the information to begin a complaint against the Department for Work and Pensions about the lack of notice on state pension age changes. There is already strong interest in setting up a group on Arran and Patricia Gibson, SNP MP for North Ayrshire and Arran, has been supporting local women and will be attending the first meeting.
The new group will decide if it wants to be a satellite group of the main Ayrshire group or to establish an Arran WASPI group of its own.
WASPI women are raising a complaint against the Department for Work and Pensions on the maladministration of the pension age changes and are looking at a mass action that will go to the ombusman.
For more information or to get involved contact ayrshirewaspi@gmail.com of see the WASPI Facebook page.