In the past four years, the system's pension and health care costs have, indeed, risen more sharply than expected.

As we are all in this together, it is therefore only fair pensions and benefits rise by 2% next year.

The most attacked current proposal would hold pension growth to the rate of inflation for two years, instead of letting pensions rise with wages.

Of course, pensions will rise in line with earnings, as and when the economy picks up and people start getting decent pay rises again.

This implies that average pensions rise in line with wages.

Between 1990 and 1995, gross wages in the east rose from 35% to 74% of western levels, while pensions rose from 40% to 79%.

Under the agreement, reached after more than a month of negotiations in San Francisco, longshoremen's pensions will rise by almost 60 percent, the officials said.

The pensions of salaried workers retiring after 30 years will rise until, by October 1995, they get $2,030 a month.

The Government had previously guaranteed the pensions would rise in line with either wages, inflation or 2.5 per cent - whichever is highest.

If you are a pensioner, struggling to make ends meet, it means your pension will rise in line with earnings again starting next April.