The Labour Party has backed a motion at its annual conference by the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians for a flexible state pension age for workers.

Speaking at the conference in Liverpool today, UCATT acting general secretary Brian Rye said the previous Labour government “failed” on the issue of the state pension age and the current Conservative government are “making a bad situation worse”.

“A one size fits all pension age is inherently discriminatory, it takes no account of the ability of a worker to undertake the tasks they’re employed to do. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that doctors and lawyers are likely to be able to keep working longer than a brick layer or a prison officer, yet they are both entitled to a pension at the same age.”

He quoted research published by the Trades Union Congress this month, which revealed that one in eight workers are forced to retire five years before the current pension age. He said the problem will “only get worse” as the pension age rises to 67 by 2026 and to 68 by 2044.

“George Osborne the heir to a wallpaper empire, strongly suggested whilst he was chancellor that the pension age will rise further to 70, the justification for these rises are that people are living longer but that in itself is not the complete truth.

“Workers in professional roles such as doctors, lawyers and accountants have a life expectancy of 80 but for many manual workers their life expectancy is under 73 years. With the life expectancy of manual workers rising more slowly than other groups we have created a double whammy for manual workers; forced to retire before the pension age and then likely to die seven years before many others. That is not social justice this is discrimination by job, it is simply not acceptable for this party to tolerate such a policy,” he said.

Therefore, he said there needs to be “a great leap forward” in party policy to agree to a flexible pension age to allow workers in certain trades to have the option of retiring earlier.

“The detail can be worked out later, but conference if we are to win back the support of many workers and to convince them that we are on their side we need policies that prove this. A policy of a flexible pension age would begin the process of reconnecting with our grass roots, it is a total fallacy to suggest that hard work never killed anyone.

“As the evidence shows, it will shorten your life and during that working life the cumulative effect of heavy lifting, working outside in all conditions, long hours and a poor diet means that workers slowly become crippled and maimed until they can’t go on. Let us give workers in psychically demanding jobs the chance to have the dignity they deserve, I ask conference to support a flexible pension age. I move.”

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