{"id":16257,"date":"2018-09-21T15:19:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T14:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=16257"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:58:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:58:13","slug":"royal-mail-aghast-at-the-greed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=16257","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Aghast at the greed\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Privatised Royal Mail is facing furore over its new chairman, after he approved \u00e2\u20ac\u015bobscene\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdisgraceful\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 pay packets for top executives.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Les Owen has been appointed chairman despite being on the pay committee that authorised a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bgolden handshake\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 worth nearly \u00c2\u01416m for new CEO Rico Back.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The committee also handed former chief executive Moya Green, who oversaw Royal Mail\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s privatisation in 2013, around \u00c2\u01412.7m as part of her departure deal.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite has described the pay outs, which led to a 70 per cent shareholder revolt in July \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one of the biggest in British corporate history \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as obscene.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Despite the controversy, Owen was this week promoted to chairman following the resignation of Peter Long.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Owen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appointment was handled by Royal Mail senior independent director Orna Ni-Chionna, who also sits on the pay committee.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>His appointment sparked fury amongst shareholders, with Cliff Weight from the Sharesoc shareholder group saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bshareholders would welcome a fresh perspective from a chairman who was not involved in setting the disgraceful remuneration\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Failures of privatisation<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Unite national officer for services Rhys McCarthy said the pay deals, which are being looked at by MPs, are another reminder of the failures of privatisation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe money being creamed off Royal Mail by its executives is obscene, especially when you consider that Rico Back already worked for the company \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in effect he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been paid a \u00c2\u01416m bonus for an internal promotion. It says something when even Royal Mail shareholders are aghast at the greedy excesses of the firm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leadership.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnfortunately this is what you get when publicly owned services are sold off to private companies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe focus changes from providing decent delivery to extracting cash, with the public and workforce usually suffering the consequences to service provision and employment standards.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis episode of flagrant money-grubbing at the Royal Mail should serve as yet another reminder of why mail, rail, utilities and other essential services are far better off in public hands.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Privatised Royal Mail is facing furore over its new chairman, after he approved \u00e2\u20ac\u015bobscene\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdisgraceful\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 pay packets for top executives. &nbsp; Les Owen has been appointed chairman despite being on the pay committee that authorised a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bgolden handshake\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 worth nearly \u00c2\u01416m for new CEO Rico Back. &nbsp; The committee also handed former chief executive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[314],"wps_subtitle":"Royal Mail chair agrees \u00e2\u20ac\u0098obscene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pay packets","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25865,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16257\/revisions\/25865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}