If you are, or have been in the past, you should lodge a Tribunal application. Contact the Pensions section in Usdaw's Legal department for a pack. Tel: 0161-249 2440.

You must lodge your tribunal application whilst you are still employed by the company who excluded you from the scheme or within six months of leaving.

If you did not join the scheme as soon as you could and if you have never joined it your case may be problematic.

Successful applicants must be prepared to pay backdated employee pension contributions. Entry will usually be backdated to 1976 or the date you joined the company, whichever is later.

All part-time workers should now have the same option to join company pension schemes as full-time workers.

Integration factors

Many company schemes make a deduction from pay to calculate pensionable pay to state retirement benefits - known as integration factors. This disproportionately affects the low paid and trade unions have been campaigning to remove these integration factors. Many part-time workers were affected by this and excluded from pension schemes in the past.

However, since 1 July 2000, part-time workers should not be treated less favourably than full-time workers for benefits and so any integration factors should be pro rated for part-time workers.

Usdaw encourages schemes to eliminate integration and to base pensions on all earnings to maximise the pension