Fat cats ‘out of touch on pay reality’

Research
released by the Transport and General Workers’ Union finds that the top
employers are earning at least 600 times more than the lowest paid
earners. 

Bill
Morris, T&G General Secretary, said : "This is an excessive gap which
shows that Britain’s boardrooms are out of touch with reality on pay."

The
study, conducted for the T&G by Labour Research, claims that the top 10
earners in the FTSE 100 earned a whopping £63m last year, or an average of £6.3m
each.  

However,
the bottom 10 earners only managed to average just over £10,000 each for the
year.

Top
ten earners

Bottom
ten earners

Commenting
on the figures, Morris said: "How can the CBI criticise pay demands of the
low paid workers when they are earning such extreme figures?

"It
is a sad reflection of our society that bosses seem to think it is acceptable
to pay themselves telephone number salaries while paying peanuts to thousands
of workers, who are left to struggle on a minimum wage.

"The
fat cats should try to live on the wages of their staff before they commence
wage negotiations – that way we might see a reduction in the gap between the
poorest and highest earners in our society." 

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By
Ben Willmott