Feeble Tory Reforms

 In an interview with the BBC, Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, described the plans as “feeble”. She said the government had “bottled it” in response to pressure from business and criticised ministers for refusing to curb excessive executive pay while capping pay rises for ordinary public sector workers. O’Grady said the government plans had “no teeth” and would little impact on executive pay. She said it was not enough to rely on shareholders to vote down excessive pay deals for executives because only three remuneration reports were defeated by shareholders in the last season.
“Just a year ago the prime minister repeatedly promised fundamental reform of business. And that’s because there was real public concern about boardroom greed, about tax avoidance, and exploitative works practices at the likes of Sports Direct. This response, I’m afraid, is feeble ...
I’m afraid the government has bottled it in the face of business lobbying. And that doesn’t bode well for really tackling some of these big problems, like greed at the top, and what’s happening to everybody else’s pay.
I have to say, if the government had shown an ounce of the enthusiasm for capping top pay that it has shown for capping the pay of firefighters, nurses, and teachers, we would probably be in a very different place.”

“A lot of these proposals are about transparency and voluntary action. And we may get one-off reductions in top pay for PR purposes, but then see it creeping back, because these proposals have no teeth. And much of the information that they are proposing to make transparent is already in the public domain.”

She accused Theresa May of breaking her promise to put workers on company boards. “Most of us would think that workers on boards means workers elected by other workers, not people who are not workers selected by the boss.”