Happy Fat Cat Friday (for some)!

I picked up the Metro on the bus today and read on page 2 an article headlined, 'Fat Cat Friday'. A few minutes later, I saw the same headline on Sky News on TV in the pub. By 1.00 pm today (Friday 4 January), the UK's top chief executives will have been paid as much since the start of 2019 as an average worker is paid in a year.

According to a study by the High Pay Centre and the Chartered Institute of Personnel, the average FTSE-100 CEO is paid £133 for every £1 earned by their employees. Twenty years ago, the figure was £45 for every £1 earned by their staff. To put it another way, they receive more than £1,000 per hour, while the living wage is £7.83 per hour.

Such unjustifiable remunerations are based on the self-serving fantasy of uniquely irreplaceable top managers who are - it is preposterously alleged - worth every penny of their bloated pay packets. On the other hand, the wages of the workers who actually create the wealth is treated as a cost to be minimised.

According to the study, the median pay packet of top CEOs is £3.9 million, an increase of 11% in a year. Frances O'Grady, TUC general secretary, responded to the findings by calling for 'big reforms to bring fat cat pay down to earth.'

This article follows on from the post of 19 December which pointed out that for every £1 million squandered on excessive executive pay, 65 minimum wage or 35 average wage jobs could have been created. Which do you think is worth more to the economy?

Neville Grundy
ARMS