Little Did We Know

Picture 2005

Imagine retiring from Johnson & Johnson in 2005. You have given the company thirty years, perhaps more. There is a leaving do, a card signed by colleagues, maybe a gift chosen to mark the occasion. And when it comes to the pension you have spent a working life building, you have every reasonable ground for confidence.

By 2005, discretionary increases to pre-1997 pensions had been granted, on and off, for at least two decades — the Association’s own research traces the practice back to at least 1984.1[1]J&J Pensioners Network, “How We Were All Lulled Into a False Sense of Security,” June 2026 — tradition of discretionary increases dating to at least 1984. The April 1994 newsletter told members it was “at least the 10th straight year” in which the Company had been able to increase pensions in payment, and set out a decade of specific award percentages, year by year.2[2]J&J UK Group Retirement Plan, Pension News, April 1994/95 (Trustees’ Report for the year ended 31 March 1994) — table of increases 1989–1994. The 1996 Trustees’ Report recorded the fund at 136.5% funded, having grown 23% in a single year.3[3]J&J UK Group Retirement Plan, 1996 Trustees’ Report — fund growth and funding level. And in the years either side of a 2005 retirement, two further special increases were confirmed — in April 2002 and September 2004 — each set at 90% of the Retail Prices Index.4[4]Aptia (Plan administrator), member correspondence dated November 2015, confirming special increases in April 2002, September 2004 and October 2007 (each at 90% RPI) and the January 2014 increase of 19.1%.

None of this was a rumour or a hope. It was a documented, repeated pattern, communicated in writing, year after year.

What They Were Told

The Company and the Trustees did not merely grant increases; they explained why. Three former company-appointed trustees have confirmed to the Association that, during their time as trustees, they sought — where possible — to keep members’ purchasing power “whole,” and that when asked by members, they confirmed this directly to them.5[5]Confirmed to J&J Pensioners Network by three former company-appointed trustees of the scheme; see also “How We Were All Lulled Into a False Sense of Security,” June 2026. Johnson & Johnson’s own Credo, in place since 1943, promised that employees “must have a sense of security, fulfilment and purpose” and that “compensation must be fair and adequate” — language that said nothing about that responsibility ending on the day someone retired.6[6]Johnson & Johnson, Our Credo, jnj.com/our-credo (Robert Wood Johnson, 1943; current version 2018).

It is true that every newsletter carried a formal caveat: that increases were not automatic, and remained at the discretion of the Trustees and the Company. But set against ten, fifteen, twenty years of increases actually being granted, that caveat read as legal small print — not as a warning that the practice might simply stop, permanently, without explanation.

Nine Years Later

The pattern continued a little further. A further special increase followed in October 2007. Then, effective 1 January 2014, pre-1997 pensions received a 19.1% increase — by the Association’s count, the fourth such catch-up since 2002.4[4]Aptia (Plan administrator), member correspondence dated November 2015, confirming special increases in April 2002, September 2004 and October 2007 (each at 90% RPI) and the January 2014 increase of 19.1%. Nothing about it looked like an ending. If anything, the size of the award — the largest in the series — looked like business as usual.

It was not. No further discretionary increase has been granted since. For members who retired in 2005 expecting the pattern of their working life to continue, January 2014 was the year it quietly stopped — nine years into a retirement they had every reason to believe was secure.

The Letter That Never Came

What happened next is, in its way, the most striking part of this story. The Association has reviewed the Plan’s member newsletters going back to 1995. Not one of them ever announced the change. The December 2022 newsletter led with “Good news on the Plan’s funding level,” reporting three consecutive years of healthy funding — without mentioning that pre-1997 increases had by then been frozen for eight of those years.7[7]J&J UK Group Retirement Plan / J&J CARE Plan member newsletters, December 2022 and 2025 editions. The most recent pensioner newsletter in the Association’s archive, from 2025, includes a helpful guide to spotting pension scams. It does not mention the freeze. It does not mention the scheme’s surplus.7[7]J&J UK Group Retirement Plan / J&J CARE Plan member newsletters, December 2022 and 2025 editions.

The sentence that should have appeared in a Plan newsletter at some point after January 2014 — and never did — might have read: “We are writing to inform you that the Company has decided not to grant any further discretionary increases on pre-1997 pension. This decision applies regardless of the scheme’s funding level.” That sentence was never written.

Members were not told the tradition had ended. They simply stopped receiving increases, year after year, and were left to notice — or not — on their own.

Where That Leaves Us Today

Over twelve years have now passed since that last increase. The scheme holds a surplus of £484 million, funded at 133% (31 March 2025).8[8]J&J UK Group Retirement Plan, Summary Funding Statement and Mercer actuarial report, 31 March 2025. The employer has paid nothing toward members’ benefit funding since the scheme closed to further accrual in April 2023.8[8]J&J UK Group Retirement Plan, Summary Funding Statement and Mercer actuarial report, 31 March 2025. Using the Office for National Statistics’ own published RPI figures, cumulative inflation since January 2014 stands at 66.6% (September 2025 reading) — meaning a pre-1997 pension left unincreased since 2014 has lost approximately 40% of its real purchasing power, and continues losing more with every passing April.9[9]Office for National Statistics, RPI index (series CHAW), September readings; calculations by the Association. Full sourcing and calculations are set out in the Association’s companion article, “How We Were All Lulled Into a False Sense of Security.”1[1]J&J Pensioners Network, “How We Were All Lulled Into a False Sense of Security,” June 2026 — tradition of discretionary increases dating to at least 1984.

Why We Wrote This Article

This article imagines that 2005 retirement from the inside: the leaving party, the confidence, the plans for a garden and grandchildren — all of it built honestly on thirty years of documented evidence that J&J kept its word. The retiree described here is not any one named member; they are a composite of the Plan’s membership as a whole, drawn from the newsletters, reports and figures set out above. What follows is the letter that should have come in 2014 — and the silence that came instead.

This article, and the others linked below, are where the facts behind that silence are set out in full, with sources, for anyone who wants to check them.

A Modest Ask

The Association is not asking the Company to do anything the law requires it to do; on that point, the Company and the Trustee are correct. It is asking the Company to consider whether thirty years of a different kind of promise — kept faithfully, in writing, for decades — deserves to be honoured now that the scheme can once again afford it.

About This Document

This article is published by J&J Pensioners Network. All factual statements are based on documentary evidence: member newsletters and Trustees’ Reports dating back to 1995, executed deeds of amendment, Summary Funding Statements, audited annual reports and actuarial valuations, published ONS RPI data, and Johnson & Johnson’s own published Credo. The Association welcomes corrections to any factual statement. Nothing in this article constitutes legal or financial advice.