How we began A SINGLE issue prompted the formation of COUP. In the early 1990's there were more assets in the pension fund than necessary to meet all its commitments so the company declared a contributions’ holiday for itself and all employees and used the money that became available for other purposes. Because it was not paying employer’s contributions the company was able to use the surplus cash to underwrite various liabilities arising from redundancies and early retirements arising from the restructuring of some operations. Other money was used to improve dividends when the company was underperforming. Employees also did well out of the situation. Not only did they have more money in their wage packets and salary cheques but they retired on better pensions than any of us because they were based on their enhanced earnings. Comparatively speaking, we saw very little out of the situation and a group of employees considered this was unfair so they formed the committee to campaign for a better share of the surplus money. It is disturbing that the size of the original surplus was due to a miscalculation by the fund’s professional advisors. Back in the 1990’s the actuaries made no allowance for the fact that people were living longer even though this was common knowledge. The ‘experts’ should have known better!