Steel workers in Wales and England have voted to accept an agreement to reinstate their final pension salary scheme.

Staff at the Caparo plants in Wrexham, Tredegar and Scunthorpe have been holding one day strikes since July.

I am glad that this dispute has been resolved

Michael Leahy ISTC

The reopened scheme will provide members with a pension which had been previously closed by the firm.

No further industrial action will be taken by members of the ISTC union.

General Secretary Michael Leahy said he was pleased with the development.

"Our members at Caparo have voted overwhelmingly to accept the offer to restore the final salary pension scheme.

"I am glad that this dispute has been resolved."

The ISTC held successful talks with the company

Earlier this month hundreds of Caparo workers took a protest petition to Downing Street calling on the UK Government to change the law to safeguard workers' pensions rights.

The ISTC had claimed its members would be 25% worse off when they retired under the management proposals.

Caparo was just one of many companies which has announced the closure of its employee final salary pension scheme.

Shortfall

The financial package guarantees those paying into it a pension income based on number of years of service and salary when the employee leaves the company.

Many schemes have fallen short and seen funds shrink as a result of stock market falls.

In such cases, firms face the possibility of having to make up any shortfall between the assets of the final salary scheme and the benefits promised to members.

In many cases, this risk has persuaded companies to close down final salary schemes and switch to money-purchase schemes where the employee bears most of the risk.

It will now be left up to individual workers to decide whether they want to continue with the reinstated pension scheme.