I have worked for a company for 20 years, and just found out that the company had a pension scheme all along! I was told that it was originally only for staff, and that as a blue-collar worker I didn’t qualify. I feel I’ve been treated unfairly: what’s my legal position?
Prior to the introduction of the stakeholder pension scheme it wasn’t compulsory for an employer to provide a pension scheme for his or her employees. That being the case there was nothing to stop an employer offering a pension scheme to some employees and not others, and even now it could offer an enhanced scheme selectively. Some employees will also no doubt be offered a company car! It would only be discriminatory if employees were excluded from a scheme on grounds of sex, race or because they don’t work full-time.