AFTER months of staff strikes, a deal over a new pension scheme for staff at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has finally been agreed.

Staff at the sites in Aldermaston and Burghfield staged four separate walk outs from November 2016 over proposed changes to their pensions, which would have left employees financially poorer.

As previously reported in The Gazette, there were numerous attempts to reach an agreement, but trade unions said the offer put on the table was “insulting”.

However, now trade union Prospect has brokered a deal where members paying at the default level of contributions will receive an employer contribution of 11.5 per cent, rather than the seven per cent originally offered, and those who choose to pay at the maximum level will get an employer contribution of 13 per cent, instead of nine per cent.

Despite this improvement, the new pensions plan still represents a massive drop from the former defined benefit scheme.

Prospect negotiator Richard Tabbner said: “Members secured significant improvements to the pension proposals through their industrial action. This shows how important it is to respond to challenges in the workplace in a collective way and also how trade union members get a better deal on pensions and other terms and conditions.

“However, it is extremely disappointing that industrial action was needed to secure most of the improvements; the company should have offered the best possible terms in the first place.”

The new proposal was put to a ballot with 59 per cent of members voting to accept and 41 per cent voting to reject, with a turnout of 84 per cent.

An AWE spokesperson said: “AWE is committed to establishing future pension arrangements that are affordable for our staff and attractive to future employees. The revised AWE scheme is in the top 25 percentile.”