Tony Benn used to say that, even under capitalism, no one need earn more than ten times more than anyone else. Recent studies by the likes of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have shown that societies with the least income inequality are also the happiest. So what do we say about Mark Bristow, CEO of Rangold Resources, who was paid £4.4m last year, nearly 1,500 times that of his average employee? Or Lord Wolfson at Next, who received £4.6m, while his staff, most of whom work on the shop floor, typically took home £10,000 – about 459 times less than their boss? Or Richard Cousins, chief executive of the Compass Group, which employs many cooks, cleaners and security officers, and where the average £13,000 annual salary is among the lowest in the FTSE 100 index of Britains biggest listed companies? Cousins took home £5.5m last year – 418 times more than his workers. This is beyond obscene. Its a disease - and one which has grown and festered under both New Labour and the Coalition. Until a political party is prepared to deal with this (and wed suggest that the party of labour might be a good candidate), voters will continue to view their promises with scepticism. On the other hand, the party who has the guts to genuinely tackle high pay, through a progressive taxation system, will reap a massive dividend - in terms of tax receipts, social spending and voter loyalty. Now, that would really be worthy of being called a better politics. theguardian/business/2014/aug/18/pay-gap-grows-ftse-bosses
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 11:10:44 +0000