A ‘fair slice of the pie’?

Greedy FTSE 100 bosses made more money during the first two and half days of 2017 than most people earn all year, new research has found.

Fat Cat directors on a rate of more than ÂŁ1,000 an hour earned just over ÂŁ28,000 by Wednesday of this week (January 4). The sum is the same amount as the average British worker earns in a year, calculations from the High Pay Centre showed.

Pay for top bosses has been increasing since 2010, with wages for the average FTSE 100 CEO in 2015 reaching nearly ÂŁ4m a year – a staggering 129 times more than the average worker’s annual salary.

“Our new year calculation is not designed to make the return to work harder than it already is. But ‘Fat Cat Wednesday’ is an important reminder of the continuing problem of the unfair pay gap in the UK,” said High Pay Centre (HPC) director Stefan Stern.

“We hope the government will recognise that further reform to pay practices are needed if this gap is to be closed. That will be the main point in our submission to the business department in its current consultation over corporate governance reform.”

The HPC calculated the figures by “making the generous assumption” that the UK’s biggest bosses put in 12 hour days, worked three quarters of their weekends and only took 10 days holiday a year.

Raked in

With average earnings of £1,009 per hour, the HPC found that if the CEOs started work on Monday January 2, they would have raked in £28,000 by Wednesday afternoon – compared to the national minimum wage of £7.20 an hour for over 25s.

Stern said greater transparency and employee representation on company boards is needed to help close the massive wage gap, which is expected to be exacerbated by increasing living costs and stagnating wages – as a result of the economic uncertainty over Brexit.

He said, “Effective representation for ordinary workers on the company remuneration committees that set executive pay, and publication of the pay ratio between the highest and average earner within a company, would bring a greater sense of proportion to the setting of top pay.”

Systemic injustices

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said the pay gap reflected systemic injustices within the economy, which he said had been aided by the government’s continued attacks on working people.

“Despite a fall in wages and living standards for working people over the last nine years, the pay of top executives has continued to increase beyond all reason,” Turner said.

“There is clearly something wrong when the average worker’s annual wage is surpassed by a single person in just a few days. Working people help create the wealth enjoyed by those at the top and they deserve a fair slice of the pie.”

He added, “But instead of helping them to achieve that we have a government that has been determined to make their share even smaller.

“The Tories have attacked trade unions and weakened employment rights. It’s no coincidence that as fat cat pay has increased so have zero and short hour contracts and insecure and precarious working.”