Hannah Ponting, Liverpool north socialist party
Allison Kirkby, chief executive of BT, has recently seen her pay and bonus package more than double, reaching a total of £5.6 million. This includes £1.1 million in salary, pension contributions, and benefits alongside a £1 million cash bonus. BT’s share price has risen by almost 80% since Kirkby was made chief executive in February 2024.
So, despite the company finding enough funds to award millions of pounds of rewards to its boss, the company plans to cut up to 55,000 jobs from its global workforce of 130,000 by 2030. The decision was justified on the grounds of improving ‘efficiency’ of operations through the increased use of AI.
Across many industries, executives receive multi-million pound pay packages while working-class people face job losses, precarious employment circumstances, and a growing sense of uncertainty as to their futures.
Increasingly, AI is being framed as a way to justify job cuts in the name of efficiency, yet technological progress by no means necessitates job losses. In principle, expanding technology could be used to reduce working hours and allow workers to focus on skilled, fulfilling work. Instead, under capitalism, technological improvements are often used as an opportunity to cut jobs and reduce labour costs in order to increase profits while keeping pay and conditions poor. AI is a tool, and how it is used is determined by who controls it.
Under capitalism, the pursuit of profit is prioritised over the needs of workers and consumers. As long as this system remains in place, the widening gap between the rewards enjoyed by corporate executives and the insecurity faced by working-class people will not be resolved.
Instead, the major companies and industries should be nationalised and controlled democratically by the workers. This would allow for tools like AI to be used for socially useful purposes, allow for proper protections of jobs, and put an end to the vast amounts of inequality which we see under capitalism.
