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From The Socialist newspaper, 13 January 2016
Bosses 'earn' year's pay in under a week
Rachael Haines, Unite union rep (personal capacity)
By the first Tuesday of 2016, chief executives at the UK's top 'FTSE 100' firms were sitting happily on earnings it will take the average full-time worker a year to make.
So-called Fat Cat Tuesday is anything but cute. In fact, it highlights the enormous pay gap between the rich and the rest of us.
£27,645 by late afternoon on 5 January. That is a lot of cream for very few. It's an insult to those of us who work as hard as we do and for as long as we do for such little pay in return.
The bosses and their politicians constantly tell us that if we work passionately enough, and with enough commitment and stamina, we will be rewarded with a lifestyle of comfort and security. Fat Cat Tuesday comes as a grim reminder that this just isn't so.
We are creeping back to a kind of Dickensian horror show. The nation's pay gap increases year by year. The bosses' economic system is fuelling inequality and poverty - behind a façade of partnership, "we're all in it together", that no one seriously believes anymore.
Class
The pay gap gets to the very core of what it means and feels like to be working class. Workers and young people are excluded from lifestyles dangled in front of us in adverts and the press.
But there is a solution. Bosses like the FTSE fat cats don't make their money out of thin air. They rely on workers to make the goods and run the services, and then declare themselves and their shareholders the beneficiaries.
Taking these firms into public ownership, and taking the obscene wealth off the fat cat 1%, could mean a decent life for us all.
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
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In The Socialist 13 January 2016:
What we think
Corbyn must lead a fight against the right and for an anti-austerity programme
NHS
Junior doctors' strike: picket photos and reports
Doctors battle burnout as 100 full-up GP surgeries apply to shut their doors
"Shattered but proud", a day in the life of a student nurse
Student nurses march to oppose bursary cut
Socialist Party news and analysis
Bosses 'earn' year's pay in under a week
BBC planned live Labour resignation to damage Corbyn
EU probes power plant for wrongdoing over switch from coal to biomass
Housing crisis
Slums, speculation, sell-offs and sardines
Housing staff strike against cuts
Cameron's 10,000 new homes won't hide the problem
476,000 homes in England go unbuilt by speculators
Council cuts
A clear strategy to defeat the Tory cuts
Council uses reserves to stop cuts
Southampton people's budget meeting
Readers' comments and reviews
Victor Jara's revolutionary life, poetry and politics
International socialist news and analysis
Sexual assaults in Cologne exploited by racist establishment and far right
Honduras: Day of the endangered lawyer
Workplace news and analysis
West Dunbartonshire teachers strike
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
"We hope to inspire people to go out and spread their passion for the Socialist"
Report: Socialist Party national women's meeting
Eleanor Marx: a life of struggle, solidarity and socialism
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