Pension policy ‘discriminates against manual workers’

Actually manual workers in Scotland are likely to die at a much younger age then there white collar colleagues. Often by as much as ten years. The nature of the physical labour is not such that it makes you healthier, there is a far greater exposure to chemicals and other environmental factors harmful to health.
The classic example within one workforce would be local government employees. Teachers considerably outlive the carriers who work on cleansing lorries.
Myth about stress is that it is a white collar illness, 29% of manual workers suffer from stress. This is why the HSE is taking the issue so seriously in order to lower the number of absences due to stress.

You can make statistics say whatever you want them to say - manual workers may be more likely to expire at a slightly younger age; but that might be due to a whole load of other influencing factors. Without a controlled study the truth is inlikely to be easily discernable from rhetoric.

In theory... I would have thought that manual workers would be in a good position to be more healthy rather than less. They are, after all, involved in jobs that are likely to be less sedentary than those of upper management. HOWEVER, I guess they are also less likely to be using private health plans... the variables are just too many to be able to draw conclusions.

I suspect the differences are more to do with lifestyle choices and attitudes to personal health (smoking, drinking, exercise, diet etc) rather than occupation. I'm sure overworked and stressed management and professional employees also want to be able to enjoy their hard earned retirement.
And who is to decide whether a job is manual or not? And what about people who change jobs?
Overall not one of Ucatt's better statements.

But that is supposing the government wants you to retire when all they want is your money and you to die before they need to pay you a pension.