CORPORATE FAT-CATS ENJOYED £500,000 PAY RISE IN 2014:

TIME TO FORCE CAPITALISM TO WORK FOR EVERYONE

AT the time of writing (3.00pm on Sunday 11 January 2015) Britain’s top company executives had already ‘earned’ (sic) over £90,500 in 2015. In fact they’d made more money by last Tuesday, (6 January 2015), than most UK workers will earn all year!

That’s why last Tuesday was dubbed ‘Fatcat Tuesday’. On that day top bosses’ earnings surpassed the average full-time UK worker's annual salary – just two days after returning to work following the Christmas and New Year holidays!

Calculations by the High Pay Centre think-tank showed that earnings for company executives returning to work last Monday had reached the equivalent of the UK average salary of £27,200 by late afternoon on ‘Fatcat Tuesday.’

FTSE 100 Chief Executives are paid an average £4.72 million. The High Pay Centre found that even if CEOs are assumed to work long hours with very few holidays, this is equivalent to hourly pay of nearly £1,200

When the High Pay Centre made the same calculation last year, the think-tank estimated that top bosses would have to wait until the first working Wednesday of 2014 to surpass the earnings of the average worker. But while pay realised by FTSE 100 Chief Executives has risen by nearly £500,000 since last year, the annual pay of the average UK worker has increased by just £200, from £27,000 to £27,200.

These figures demonstrate that the Government’s half-hearted effort to curb top pay by giving shareholders the power to veto excessive pay packages has been a complete failure.

Labour’s plans to make firms publish the ratio of their top earners pay compared to average employees and put worker representatives on remuneration committees would help to tackle this grotesque inequality.

Let’s remember that the UK is one of the richest nations on the planet. But if we are ever going to make our economy more productive and ensure that everyone shares in Britain’s wealth, we need a different approach.

That means standing up to big business and the super-rich to start making capitalism work for everyone, not just Britain’s wealthiest individuals, as is the case now. One important step we should take is to give workers the power to force employers to share pay more fairly throughout their organisation. We could also follow the Ecuadorian example that requires companies to pay the Living Wage before they can declare any dividends for shareholders.

If anyone doubts the need to take action I suggest you watch the BBC2 documentary ‘The super-rich and us’ screened last week. It’s available now on iPayer.