“BRING BACK SHAME TO OUR BOARDROOMS,” SAY CAMPAIGNERS
Big businesses should publish statistics revealing the pay gap between their top bosses and the rest of their workforce, in an attempt to curb excessive pay for senior executives and “bring back at least a modicum of shame or embarrassment into our boardrooms”, a leading think tank has said.
The huge discrepancy between executive pay and regular ‘worker’ salaries has become a hot topic in recent years. Campaigners have expressed shock at the latest stats, which show that chief executives of FTSE 100 companies earn on average 150 times the average wage of the rest of their staff. In 2014, the average pay for a FTSE 100 chief executive was £5.2m compared with £34,846 for the rest of the workforce. Stefan Stern, director of the High Pay Centre, told the Guardian:
“Pay ratios — revealing the gap between what is paid at the top and the middle of a business — could help bring back at least a modicum of shame or embarrassment into our boardrooms.
“If we really want to be ‘all in this together’, to use a phrase that has sadly fallen into abeyance, a narrower gap between pay at the top and what the rest of the organisation receives would be a positive sign.”
Of course, everybody wants to know what their boss earns (hey, we’re just plain nosy) – but are we saying it is now our right? From 2017, American CEOs will be forced to publish their pay ratios – is it right that UK companies do the same? Have your say below…
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