Anger at obscene pay rises for top A bosses has rocked a series of
company AGMs this summer. A majority of GlaxoSmithKline shareholders voted against a "platinum parachute" for its chief executive, Jean-Pierre Garnier, guaranteeing £22m if he was fired for underperformance.
At HSBC bank, executive director William Aldinger Ill's £22.5m 3-year pay deal was defended by the company's chair as "the appropriate market rate".
But not everyone at the HSBC AGM thought so. Among the 20% of shareholders protesting was Abdul Durrant. Describing himself as an "invisible night deaner" at the bank's Canary Wharf tower, he asked for a pay rise. "We receive a whole f5 an hour", he said, "no pension, a miserty sick scheme. Our children go to school without adequate lunch".
It then emerged that executive board members at Tesco had pay deals guaranteeing them five times their salary if they were sacked. At the Sainsbury's AGM there was anger that new boss Sir Peter Davis was getting €4m in shares.
He still gets it if he underperforms by 30% and even keeps half if he is fired! 200 Sainsbury's workers whose job cuts were announced the same day are unlikely to do Pliers Mostyn as well.
The shareholders' revolt - fronted by the Insurers and Pension Funds associationsoppose state intervention as a solution. Labour's response has been to stress that, *the government fully supports high levels of reward for high levels of success". It backs a "voluntary solution" - calling for more accountability to shareholders or shorter contractual terms. In other words it's "business as usual lads".
This stance should come as no surprise. The gap between the pay of directors and their employees has grown to a chasm under Blair. Income Data Services found that the pay of bosses of the FTSE 100 companies rose 89.3% (to an average of £933,000) during Labour's first term of government, whilst their shopfloor employees in the number of security incidents.
of E17,524) over the same period. doing the same jobs. HIGH FAT CAT CO TRIPLE CRE
unions must save capitalism". was highlighted when ASW Sheerness penwound up. scheme" to deal with the scandal of this daylight pensions robbery have denounced. Experts say the levy required to pay for it would make the very pensions schemes that are supposed to be safeguarded go bust. And the reforms would actually reduce the value of company schemes, as got only 19.6% (taking them to an average •
Labour also put the boot into the low paid recently blocking a proposed EU directive giving equal pay to temporary agency workers. This condemned 200,000 agency workers in this country to less pay than permanent staff
The TUC have been little better than New Labour: Choosing the issue for his first big speech, new General Secretary Brendan Barber suggested unions could exercise the shareholder power of their pension funds. A report in the Times summed it up neatly with the headline "New TUC chief says
The pensions crisis sharply demonstrates the inequities of the market system. This get older. sions group members recently demonstrated after their retirement funds were slashed when their company scheme was Labour's promotion of a "compensation
on the market. been city. ••..
WEVE IKIED TOPROVIDE FOROUR OLDAGE, NOW ALL WEVE COT IS PENSION RAGE NO FUND-NO HOPE-NO F The last 3 years have seen a 40% decline in value for the average money purchase pension scheme
ket. they cut the rate at which firms have to increase their pensions in line with inflation from a maximum of 5 to 2.5%. The result: an increasing risk of poverty as pensioners
In addition the last 3 years have seen a 40% decline in value for the average money purchase pension scheme. Exactly matching falls in share prices over the period, this underlines the folly of staking the prosperity and security of our most vulnerable citizens
This won't trouble bosses like Vodafone's Christ Gent. His pension pot has just been raised by f3.3m to £10.4m, despite the company's pension scheme being f83m in the red - one of the biggest shortfalls in the media and the courts to outdo each
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In such circumstances working people will have been astonished to hear rail regulater Tom Winsor criticising Network Rail, now in public ownership, as being badly managed because it lacks the "discipline" of shareholder pressure
Such pressure wasn't much in evidence after the Hatfield train crash, as shareholders got healthy payouts despite the compa ny's failure, appalling service and spiralling costs. Jarvis, the sub-contractor at the heart of the crash, saw a boom in its shares that year. So much for the discipline of the marBut an alternative strategy has been in evidence. Mass strikes against attacks on pension rights have brought millions out on the streets of France. In Austria big rallies against pension cuts were held in the country's biggest post-war strike
Brazil has also seen a mass demonstration and the threat of strikes on the issue. And strikes are planned at West Midlands and Bristol-based chemical company Rhodia in protest at the closure of final salary pension schemes to new members
As for the fat cats? The socialist solution is to tax the rich. If, as a result, the top jobs suddenly look less attractive to the bosses, there must be workers willing and able to take over the rein! conditional discharges rather than