Calculations by the High Pay Centre thinktank and the professional HR body the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) show top executives are earning 133 times more than the average worker, at a rate of around £1,020 per hour or £3.9m annually. That’s up 11% compared to a year earlier.
It means CEOs working average 12-hour days would only have to clock in for 29 hours in 2019 to earn the median £29,574 of British staff.
Predictably union leaders have rushed to condemn the news. The GMB’s general secretary, Tim Roache, said: “It’s sickening. Three days into the year and fat cat bosses have already made what average workers will earn all year.” Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, also slammed “greedy executives” she said were “taking more than they’ve earned…..Too much wealth is being hoarded at the top,” she said, adding that reforms were needed to bring executive pay “back down to earth”.
More to the point is what union leaders, who head a 6 million trade union movement are doing about growing obscene inequality….not a lot!!