Cap top bosses pay call

For years there has been an increasing level of anger about ‘fat cat’ pay. The wages of top bosses keep increasing while those of workers are at best stagnating.

Twenty years ago the average boss in a FTSE top 100 company earned 50 times the wages of their average worker, that has now increased to 130 times.

While there has been a great deal of hand wringing on the issue until yesterday (January 10) there had been little or no firm proposals to deal with fat cats.

Jeremy Corbyn the Labour leader has now changed that. Labour is proposing that all companies receiving government contracts will have a top pay cap of 20 to 1. Corbyn gave the example that a company paying the living wage of ÂŁ16,000 a year would have a pay cap of ÂŁ350,000.

Pat Rafferty the Unite’s Scottish secretary today (January 11) called on the Scottish government to adopt Corbyn’s proposals – calling on them to act now.

He said, “More than 400,000 Scottish workers are being paid poverty wages. That is a national scandal and is contributing to an inequality crisis, with the richest households now 273 times wealthier than the poorest households. We need our government to act now.

“Put simply, when a company pays massive wages to fat cats, there is less for the ordinary workers who actually do the job. We can no longer afford to have public money supporting poverty pay.

Follow Corbyn’s lead call

“Jeremy Corbyn has set out his proposals on pay ratios. The Scottish government should follow his lead and bring in guidance on pay ratios for public contracts. They have the power to do it now.”

As well as the pay cap on fat cat bosses bidding for government contracts, Corbyn has additional possible proposals for dealing with encouraging all companies to introduce the pay ratios.

These include the introduction of a government approved kitemark for companies that follow the pay ratio, for top salaries to be agreed by a remuneration committee where workers are in the majority, a higher rate of income tax for the top 5 per cent or 1 per cent of incomes and a lower rate of corporation tax for companies that abide by the pay ratio.

The grotesque inequalities in pay were demonstrated last week when the High Pay Centre calculated that top bosses on a ÂŁ1,000 an hour would have earned the yearly salary of an average worker of ÂŁ28,000 by January 4.

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,” he added.