Deafening purring as fat cat bosses pay rockets
by Ken Ferguson, 05-07-2010
As everybody who does anything useful from nurses to dustmen face a crash diet of frozen pay and sackings the fat cats running the UK’s top firms purr on.
No wonder.
A new City of London survey by MMK and Manifest has revealed that, amidst wall to wall tales of hard times, the fat cat’s cream overflows as they see pay and benefits in FTSE top hundred firms rise by 5% to a cool £3.1 million since 2008.
And if that strikes you as outrageous then better sit down to receive the key finding of the survey which says : “there is no link between the pay a CEO receives and shareholder value.”
In fact while the fat felines lapped the cream the average earnings paid to shareholders actually fell by one per cent so bosses pay isn’t based on payment by results.
The city report also lifts the lid on the deeply unpopular bonus culture showing top bosses with annual bonuses making up an increasingly important proportion of their wages.
Chief Executives’ are now enjoying salaries with up to an added 300% now paid as bonuses.
Not that there largely ornamental non-executive colleagues are heading for the 99p stores as their rewards increased by an average six per cent to £70,250,.
If we believe the bosses this reflects the fact that "being a non-executive director in a FTSE-100 business has become a demanding, professional role with increased day-to-day responsibilities.”
That a fact?
Once again the Grand Canyon gulf that divides the world of the wealthy few from the rest of us is laid bare.
The report also cruelly tears away the flimsy cover from the millionaires government of Cameron and Clegg that public services and jobs must be slashed to allow the private profiteers to flourish.
In fact despite their lavish gold plated packages the report—from their own chums—shows that as bosses pay soared they failed to deliver for their firms.
Further proof surely that the fat cats cream is safe in the hands of the millionaires now sharpening the axe for everything from bus passes and cold weather payments to workers’ pensions and jobs.
To paraphrase Churchill “never have so many been mugged by so few.”
Only action will stop it.