EMPLOYEES at the town’s MINI Plant say bosses will have a fight on their hands if they go ahead with the proposal to scrap pension schemes.

Strikes have also not been ruled out after it was announced yesterday, through union Unite, that the German-owned BMW company is to close its two final salary pension schemes to future benefits from June next year.

It will impact 5,000 workers across the country including workers at the town’s Stratton St Margaret plant.

One Swindon employee in his 50s told the Adver: “I’ve worked here 24 years and I’ve worked out I’m going to lose £120,000 yet the company made £5billion profit last year.

“We are furious and we are prepared to strike. I was hoping to take early retirement but now I’m going to be here till I’m 66.

“We didn’t know about it until yesterday [Monday] and they put a letter out saying there were some proposed changes going to happen to the company but didn’t go into specifics, they just said we will be receiving a letter in the next few days.”

And he added: “We only found out through Unite. Everyone on the shop floor is up in arms it now depends of the union and whether there will be a battle on the shop floor.”

A 60-day consultation period is to begin on Thursday and this week bosses have been calling meetings with pension committees and shop stewards at all four BMW sites in the country.

Meanwhile Unite, the union representing the employees, said the plan will be fought “tooth-and-claw.”

National officer for the automotive industries Tony Murphy said it was “clear” members would lose thousands of pounds a year in retirement incomes if the proposals were to go ahead.

He added: “This is plainly unacceptable and Unite will be fighting this proposal tooth-and-claw.

“It is becoming increasingly too easy for highly profitable multi-national companies to energetically salami-slice workers’ pensions in pursuit of even greater profits.

“BMW is blaming both the increase in national insurance payments and the cost of future liabilities as to why the final salary pension has become unaffordable, although, ironically, profits are still rising in the last two quarters.”

A BMW group spokesman said: “BMW Group is proposing to close its two UK defined benefit pension schemes to future accrual from 1 June 2017 and this affects around 5,000 staff across all of the company’s UK operations.

"If implemented, all staff would join the company’s market-leading defined contribution scheme. This pension scheme was launched in early 2014 for new starters and now has over 2,000 members.

"BMW Group has always prided itself in providing excellent pensions for its staff and wants to act now to protect future pension provision for all its staff and to help protect the cost competitiveness of the UK as a manufacturing base.”