Cllr Abu Chowdhury, Aspire, at the top of the steps, addresses the Unison lobby of the pensions committee

ARE YOU funding the genocide in Gaza? You may not want to send guns to the Israeli state so they can murder more Palestinians. But someone is paying for those weapons – and it may be you.

Now the Tower Hamlets Unison branch is asking you to take just five minutes to help the campaign to stop weapons manufacturers sending guns to the Israeli state.

If you live in Tower Hamlets, you pay your Council Tax to the Council, which spends the money on delivering services – including paying staff. Staff receive their pay, but they put some of it into their pension fund, with the Council paying into that fund too. The pension scheme which Tower Hamlets staff belong to is called the “Local Government Pension Scheme”, or “LGPS”.

The boffins who run LGPS manage those contributions, which amount to a massive sum of money. They invest that money in a range of businesses, hoping to make a profit so that they can keep the pension fund afloat, with enough money to keep paying out pensions to Council staff who have retired.

As Tower Hamlets Unison point out, those boffins invest in a number of companies which pension scheme members may find distasteful (or worse). These include companies which support the Israeli state’s activities such as promoting illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and the current annihiation of Gaza and its people.

Unison is now running a campaign to persuade Councils across London to stop using their pension funds to support companies which support the Israeli state’s illegal activities, particularly those which supply weapons and military technology to the Israeli state. It is also asking the pension fund to stop investing in companies which mine or process fossil fuels.

To further its campaign, Unison has put a petition on the Council website. It has called on all Tower Hamlets residents to sign the petition: if 2,000 people sign, the Council will debate Unison’s call. The union is asking you to sign the petition, if you live in Tower Hamlets – and then forward the link to everyone else you know who lives in Tower Hamlets, asking them to sign it too. Just follow the link below.

●Sign the petition here:
Petition

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