Bosses' pay goes up by 82% for nothing

Monopoly man with axe dancing on money bags, 1% super-rich austerity inequality, photo torbakhopper (Creative Commons) (Click to enlarge)

Mark Best, Hackney Socialist Party

Chief executives' pay in Britain's top 250 companies increased by an average of 82% between 2003 and 2014.

They're paid on average Ł1.9 million, up from around Ł1 million in 2003, according to research by Lancaster University Management School.

What has this rise achieved? The study found "a material disconnect between pay and fundamental value generation." So nothing.

And top bosses at Sky are looking at starting their year off with a nice bonus from Rupert Murdoch's planned take-over by 21st Century Fox. Chief executive Jeremy Darroch and finance chief Andrew Griffith are looking at whopping payouts of Ł24.5 million and Ł13.7 million pounds respectively!

While we're squeezed by increased travel and housing prices, often stuck in precarious jobs on poverty pay, those at the top aren't just sitting comfortably, they're getting more comfortable every day.

Blue chip company bosses were paid an average of 47 times more than their employees in 1998. In 2014 that had risen to 130 times!

We need to fight this unfair, unequal system. Fight for a Ł10 an hour minimum wage for all. Fight for an end to zero-hour contracts, and the profit-driven race to the bottom for workers' wages while executives race to the top.

This means kicking out the fat cats who are creaming money off the backs of workers. We need to take the wealth that's there in society into democratic public ownership, starting with the banks and top 150 corporations.

From this we would be able to run society based on planning what's good for the working class, not the bosses' profits.

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