Research from Income Data Services showed that directors of companies on Britain’s FTSE 100 index enjoyed a 49 percent rise in total salaries last year compared to 3 percent rise for the FTSE 100 in the last business year.The total annual pay for the directors now averages 2.7 million pounds

This compares to a recent drop in annual average salaries – according the Mail, a drop of £2500 in the average in a recent 6 month period

For some reason, radio 4 gave air time to one such CEO justifying the inreases due to the fact that these companies are global in scope – and if we didn’t offer such huge salaries in the UK, the ‘talent’ at the top would go.

It’s unusual for radio 4 to give airtime to such nonsense! Nonsense according to Toybe and Walker’s book – unjust rewards – Chapter 3 of which investigates why Britain’s chief executives get paid so much money – and finds those at the top are not especially talented people – and there is no correlation between company performance and executive pay – for every Alan Sugar there are dozens of bureaucratic pen pushers who just go with the flow. Worryingly old boy’s networks restrict access to the boards of the FTSE 100 companies – how else could it be that, in the age of globalization, 85% of CEOs of the FTSE 100 companies are British?

Also, If there was true competition for these jobs the field would be much more international, and if there was genuine competition for these jobs, wages and bonuses would be driven down!

Instead CEOs get paid as much as they do because they demand it – and they base their demands on what other CEOs are demanding – and their demands for ever increasing wages get pushed through at board meetings because of recommendations by consultants who make their recommendations for wage and bonus increases by looking at other CEOs salaries.

Of course the government is on the side of the Corporations and it won’t do anything to combat inflated and unjust corporate pay levels- which yet another reason to protest, strike etc – It’s up to us to, after all, to control these Corporate leaches….

Related posts –

 Disparities between top pay packets need better explanation

Socialist review – unjust rewards

My review of ‘unjust rewards’