A recent agreement between Nestle and GMB and Unite trade unions will cover over 7,000 United Kingdom employees and safeguard the future of the company’s career average defined benefit scheme.

The primary points of the package include:

• Career average defined benefit pension based on an 80th accrual for all existing members
• A salary cap for defined benefit pensionable earnings of £45,000 (per the consumer price index)
• Normal pension age linked to state age of retirement
• Closure of the scheme to new Nestle employees from July 1st
• Current Nestle employees who aren’t presently members of the defined benefit scheme get one last opportunity to join.

Although the agreement is still subject to trustee approval, members of the trade unions GMB and Unite were thrilled to accept the package after negotiating for a whole year. The deal includes a two-year three percent pay increase for production workers for 2016 and 2017. This is to help lessen the impact of the increased contributions for employees.

Many of the 7,600 employees affected work at the Nestle head office in Gatwick, while others work in York and Staverton amongst other areas. Nestle acknowledged that the package took quite some time to put together, but said they knew how important this would be to the lives of their employees and wanted to have ample comprehension on the situation.