Top pay rises continue apace while real wages fall for ordinary families, says TUC

TUC General Secretary, Frances O'Grady

Commenting on a report published today (Wednesday) by the Chartered Institute of Management which says that UK chief executives saw a 15.8 per cent increase in their salaries in the past year – mostly made up of bonuses, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“Ordinary people are suffering the biggest squeeze on their incomes in almost a century, but families’ financial pain is not being shared by their top bosses who have huge bonuses to cushion them against any drop in their living standards.

“While real wages continue to fall for working people, the cosy pay clubs setting salary and bonus payouts for top executives are awarding payouts that bear little relation to company performance and that only serve to widen the gap between the richest and the poorest in the UK.

“With the AGM season almost upon us, our new share owner group aims to inject a long overdue dose of reality into British boardrooms and will use the power of our pension funds to encourage a new and more responsible corporate Britain.”

Last month the TUC and its two largest affiliated unions, Unite and UNISON launched Trade Union Share Owners – a new group which aims to put union values at the heart of the world of corporate governance, with a new approach to the way in which their investments are voted on at company AGMs. From now on at any AGM of a FTSE350 company where either the TUC staff pension fund or those of its two biggest unions hold shares, the group will work with shareholder advisory group PIRC to ensure that their funds take a common voting position in accordance with a new set of policy guidelines drawn up by the TUC http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-22042-f0.cfm