UK union calls for wage debate
The TUC today called for a national debate over pay after publishing new figures showing that executives' earnings were increasing 17 times faster than average wage rises.
For every £100 earned by a company director in 2000, they now receive £205, while other workers have only had a £6 increase in every £100 (€149) in the same period, the union organisation said.
It added that every worker in the UK could have received a Christmas payout of £350 (€522) if City bonuses were shared among all employees.
General secretary Brendan Barber said in his New Year message that there was nothing wrong with people with big responsibilities or who performed well getting more pay.
However, he went on to say: "There is still an important debate to be had about how big and how justified these extra rewards should be, and to ask whether record levels of reward at the top are beginning to have a divisive effect on society and harm the economy.
"For the gap between top pay and that enjoyed by the rest of us is getting bigger each year. Plump felines became fat cats some years ago, now they are dangerously obese."
Mr Barber said executives' perks and bonuses had also shot up in recent years, so that directors of the UK's top 100 firms had "amassed" pensions worth nearly £1bn (€1.49bn) between them.
On average, directors can retire at 60 on a final salary pension worth nearly £3m (€4.5m), rising to almost £5m (€7.45m) for some top bosses.
"This is at a time when many have been happy to cut the pensions of their own staff, and been ready to condemn the Government for not cutting the pension built up by public servants such as nurses and school meals staff."
Mr Barber said levels of top pay affected the whole country because they often fed inflation in the property market which affected decisions about interest rates.
"But there is also a moral dimension. Should we not be worried that there is a growing group of people who are rich enough to float free from the rest of society?
"Is this not socially divisive? These are often important people taking decisions that can have major effects on jobs and the economy, and yet what contact do they have with ordinary people?"
Mr Barber added that many executives now earned more money than they could possibly need, but he believed the size of their pay packet had become a "status symbol."
