Labour anger as report reveals bosses earn 117 times average worker's salary
2 min read
Labour has hit out at "grotesque levels of inequality" as a new report revealed that UK bosses earned 117 times more than the average full-time worker last year.
Analysis by professional HR body the CIPD and think tank the High Pay Centre found that while the average salary for chief executives fell by 13% between 2017 and 2018, their pay still far outstrips that of most workers.
The report found that bosses at the UK's biggest listed 100 companies took home an average of £3.5m a year - compared to just £29,574 for the average full-time worker in the UK.
The findings mean that the average worker takes an entire year "to earn what a FTSE 100 CEO earns in just three working days", the groups said.
CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese said the UK's pay gap remained "unacceptably wide".
And he warned: "We must question if CEOs are overly focused on financial measures and are being incentivised to keep share prices high rather than focusing on the long-term health of their business."
Labour meanwhile seized on the report, with Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell claiming: "Years of believing the market knows best has caused the grotesque levels of inequality we see today."
He added: "In the same year that the United Nations rapporteur found that UK government policies have caused misery and hardship for millions, pay at the top continues to soar beyond anything most people could ever dream of earning."
Unions also piled in, with TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady saying the "shocking gap" should prompt "major reform".
"We need new rules to give workers seats on executive pay committees," she said.
"This would help bring some much-needed common sense and fairness to boardroom pay."
The CIPD and High Pay Centre are meanwhile calling for pay for the top 1% of earners in a company to be publicly disclosed in a bid to address the disparity.
The groups are also pushing for remuneration committees that set executive pay to do more to consider "organisational culture, reward across the whole workforce, and executive capability and succession planning".
And there should be "a greater emphasis on non-financial measures of performance", they said.
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