Amicus calls for talks at Standard Life

Finance-sector union Amicus has built up a membership of 1,000 at insurer Standard Life – despite the company’s refusal to deal with trade unions.

The flood of new members has followed company proposals to base employees’ pension benefits on average career salary rather than salary at retirement.

Although Standard Life has cancelled meetings where union recognition was to be discussed, 500 staff have attended Amicus meetings this month.

The union’s national officer for financial services, David Fleming, has called on the company to set another date for a meeting “as a matter of urgency”, adding that there is only a short time in which the union will “be patient” on voluntary recognition rather than going down the statutory route.