Fight for £15 an hour min now!
Like death and taxes (although often not taxes for those concerned in this item), a new year and new damning inequality statistics.
The average FTSE 100 CEO earnings surpassed the median UK workers’ salary by lunchtime on 6 January. The High Pay Centre estimates an equivalent wage of £1,353.23 an hour, assuming they ‘work’ 62.5 hours a week. Wouldn’t it be nice to pretend to be working while eating a slap-up dinner or ‘networking’ on the golf course?
Don’t worry, some of these fat cats want others to get their share too. Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary isn’t happy with the calibre of capitalist politicians either. He thinks that, to ‘attract the best talent’, “If you’re a PM or cabinet minister you should be paid £1million a year”.
Actually, they already do very well indeed. The last PM, Rishi Sunak, made £2.2 million in the financial year 2022-23, mostly from investment funds. Boris Johnson made an estimated £5 million in his first year out of Number 10. ‘Poor’ old Liz Truss hasn’t done quite so well. But she did get paid £80,000 for a single speech in Taiwan after being ousted.
The demand for a £15-an-hour minimum wage now, with no exemptions, sounds pretty modest in comparison. And yet the Labour government hasn’t even done that. Trade unions have to get organised to fight for it and more!
