The National Union of Grey Squirrels has announced that 73 per cent of its membership voted in favour of reducing the working week from five days to three in return for employer contributions to a defined benefit acorn scheme.
The ballot, conducted across parks, gardens and woodland areas throughout England and Wales, saw turnout reach 89 per cent. Under the terms of the agreement, squirrels will be required to forage only Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with guaranteed access to a pension pot of no fewer than 340 hazelnuts upon reaching retirement age, currently set at four years and three months.
The deal follows eighteen months of tense negotiations between union representatives and the National Federation of Oak Trees, which had initially proposed a six-day week with no retirement provision beyond whatever members happened to remember burying.
“This is a historic moment for working squirrels,” said Jennifer Hartley, General Secretary of NUGS. “For too long our members have been expected to gather, bury and subsequently forget the location of nuts on a completely unsustainable basis. The new arrangement provides certainty, dignity, and a proper work-life balance that allows time for sitting on fences and making that chattering noise at cats.”
The pension scheme will operate on an auto-enrolment basis, with 8 per cent of foraged nuts contributed by the squirrel and 3 per cent by the tree, though concerns have been raised about enforcement mechanisms given that oaks are rooted to the ground and cannot be taken to tribunal.
Management representatives expressed reservations about the productivity implications. “We’re looking at a potential 40 per cent reduction in nut distribution efficiency,” said David Clements, a spokesman for the employers’ federation. “Our concern is that this creates a two-tier system where squirrels enjoy generous terms while hedgehogs and robins are left to operate in the gig economy with no security whatsoever.”
The agreement does not extend to red squirrels, who remain on zero-hours contracts in limited areas of Northumberland and Scotland. A separate consultation on their working conditions has been ongoing since 2003.
Implementation of the three-day week begins next Monday, with Friday designated as a non-foraging day to be spent on personal development activities including branch-running and looking in through windows. Squirrels who have already exceeded their weekly nut quota by Tuesday afternoon will be permitted to take the remainder of the week as lieu time, though they must provide at least four hours’ notice to their designated oak.
The pension scheme is expected to reach maturity in spring 2026, at which point the first cohort of retired squirrels will be able to access their benefits, provided they can remember where they put them.