Unions want employers in the rail industry to make up any shortfall in the Railways Pension Scheme, which had about $25 billion of assets at the end of 2004. Higher contributions by some workers are to start on July 1, the unions said today.

The pension plan, with about 350,000 members, was valued last year and some sections showed a deficit and others a surplus, according to the Railways Pension Scheme, which refused to provide details. The pension plan is split into separate funds for more than 100 employers in the industry.

"Whether we strike or not, the idea is to put pressure on the employers and get them to sit down and talk to us,'' Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, told reporters outside parliament today.

Voting will begin on May 17 with results due by the first week of June, the unions said. The fund had 13.7 billion pounds ($24.7 billion) of assets at the end of 2004.

The overall pension plan has a deficit of between 500 million pounds and 600 million pounds, Keith Norman, general secretary of ASLEF, said in an interview. He said he's ``hopeful'' the dispute can be resolved without striking.

Meeting at Parliament

Officials of the TSSA, RMT and the ASLEF unions will meet with U.K. members of parliament this afternoon to put pressure on the government, Carmel McHenry, a spokeswoman for London-based TSSA, said in an interview.

Employers in the industry, which include Arriva Plc, Network Rail Ltd. and National Express Group Plc, make 60 percent of contributions to the plan for members still working, while employees make up the rest.

A spokeswoman for the London-based Association of Train Operating Committees, which represents the operators, declined to comment.

Contributions should be capped at 10.56 percent of pay and existing benefits kept, according to the unions, which say they have about 100,000 members working in the rail industry.

U.K. railroads, which are split into 21 franchises that the government awards to private operators, carry about 2.8 million passengers a day, according to the operators' group.

U.K. companies are tackling pension plans whose investments are no longer projected to cover the cost of paying retirees who live longer. The deficit of the pension funds of the U.K. companies in the FTSE 350 index is 78 billion pounds, according to Watson Wyatt, an employee benefits firm.

Life Expectancy

An Englishman born in 1950 is projected to live 66.4 years, according to the Office for National Statistics. That compares with 75.1 years for those born in 1997.

The Railway Pension Scheme's largest plan is for those who worked in the rail industry in 1994, and those who have joined it since are members of the so-called ``shared cost'' sections, which make up 52 percent of the assets.

The 1994 Pensioners Section, which accounts for about 48 percent of its membership and is guaranteed by the government, consists largely of those people who were pensioners when the railroads were privatized in 1994.