Pensions! I can’t say that before my recent team up with the JustMoney Movement that pensions are something I regularly thought about, and definitely not something I thought I could use in my social justice actions. Being 23 and only recently-ish joining the real world, pensions came up on my radar as something I should probably know about… but didn’t. It was also not necessarily something I was going to spend my time learning about because, well honestly, I thought it was for real adults to concern themselves with (we can debate on whether or not I’m a real adult at another point). However, I hadn’t realised until recently that my pension provider could be using my money to fund wars, animal testing, technologies, fossil fuels and so on. Once I found this out and decided I could be an activist through my pension, I decided it deserved my time.
So here’s the thing which I found confusing. In my ignorance I thought I gave some money to my pension provider, they held onto it, then gave it back to me when I retired. What happened with my money in the meantime was not something I had considered in much detail. Then I discovered that what actually happens is that pensions providers invest that money into various sectors and companies. For example I looked up one pension provider and found a recent report from ‘Don’t Bank on the Bomb’ which stated they had a shareholding of $98.6 million in BAE Systems. BAE systems is a large weapons and arms manufacturer. Recently it has come under fire particularly for it’s involvement in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The company makes 15 percent of the parts for F-35 stealth combat jets (Campaign Against the Arms Trade). These aircraft are currently being used in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
So what can we do about it? This is the trickier question to answer. If you work freelance and are creating your own pension you can set up with whichever provider you like. However, like most people, you will probably be heading into a job where you are automatically enrolled into a pension. You are allowed to opt out of this and pick your own, or you can use resources such as the ethical consumer guide to research how the current pension provider is using your money. Some funds allow you to switch your money into an ‘ethical pension fund’ where they will use your money only for investments they deem ethical. However, this is a subjective word, and so it is worth even after switching to an ethical fund researching where your money is going. The final option is to rally with people in your workplace to call on the ‘higher ups’ to switch who they use for their pensions. In our most recent resource there is more information on each of these options, but this is just a spoiler so you know you’re not helpless!
So we can go on marches, argue with Reform voters, donate to charity and only buy fairtrade- but true activism touches every corner of our life. We can go on as many peace matches as we can, but are we making as big a difference as we would like if we don’t try to bank and pension more ethically?