The bosses pay-packets

The pay increases that top UK chief executives receive rose 32% last year. The findings came as workers suffer the most prolonged squeeze in real wages since the 1920s. Average earnings grew less than 2 per cent last year, barely half the rate of inflation (The days when British workers could expect pay rises averaging 1.5 to 2 percentage points above inflation ended with the recession of 2008-09, as they did at least a decade ago in economies such as the US and Germany under the onslaught of competition from emerging markets. They may never return). FTSE 100 chief executives’ average total pay last year was 120 times that of the average employee, a multiple that has risen from 45 times since 1998, according to the report.

The top earner was Michael Spencer of Icap, the interdealer broker, on £23.7m, followed by Michael Davis of Xstrata, the miner, on £21.2m and Bart Becht of Reckitt Benckiser, the consumer goods group, on £17.7m


Total pay for executives had quadrupled over 12 years, whereas share prices had not increased in that time. HSBC chairman Flint admitted that his company's shareholder returns had been disappointing and inadequate yet chief executive Gulliver stands to earn up to £12.5m in 2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13579672

In Canada executive pay last year shows CEOs at Canada’s 100 largest companies saw their compensation jump 13 per cent last year, led higher by a 20-per-cent increase in annual cash bonuses.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/managing/executive-compensation/back-in-the-green-ceo-pay-jumps-13/article2039083/

In Australia the average pay of a top-100 chief executive has risen to $3 million, from $1 million in today's dollars in 1993, increasing about twice as fast as the pay of ordinary workers. Chief executives of the top 100 companies are, on average, paid about 45 times the average wage

http://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/shareholders-to-vote-on-pay-packets-20110527-1f8rc.html

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“There is an emerging livelihood gap across the UK that threatens the living standards of everyone bar the super-rich,” says Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress.

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Trade union militancy has almost disappeared from the private sector, where unions now represent just 15.1 per cent of workers, compared with 56.6 per cent in the public sector. Members of the Unite union at the Heinz baked beans factory in Wigan, north-west England, recently won a 3.9 per cent rise for each of the next two years after a series of 24-hour strikes, a rare example of successful industrial action. Last year just 365,000 working days were lost through strikes – and of those, only 52,000 were in the private sector.

Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight, the economic consultancy, says: “We expect wage growth to remain muted due to workers’ weak bargaining position, given high and likely to rise unemployment.”
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/39bd8586-3b94-11e0-a96d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1NpzZytE3