TUC website puts bosses' pay packages on record Katie Allen
Saturday August 5, 2006
The Guardian
Workers smarting from below inflation pay rises can now investigate details of their bosses' bumper pay packets online.
The TUC has today launched a new website giving details of boardroom pay increases in a move which is bound to inflame anger over fat-cat rises. Its "your company" website provides employees in thousands of UK firms with details of directors' pay, pensions and bonuses dug out from companies' annual reports.
"Most employees in the country will now have freedom to get important information about their company with the click of a mouse rather than digging through company reports," said the TUC's assistant general secretary, Kay Carberry. "Company finder also enables job seekers to check out a firm before interviews or accepting a post."
Using the website, workers can look up corporate details such as turnover and a company's pensions commitments. They can discover not only what the boss is paid, but also what the average worker earns, and whether shopfloor rises have kept pace with the executive suite.
A worker at Boots, for example, would be able to see that while profit per employee averages out at £176,299 a year, pay averages out at just £25,393.
The site enables users to check other companies' pay rates for similar jobs and will also calculate how much an employee's salary should have risen by over the past five years in order to have matched pay in the boardroom.
Recent surveys showing top bosses' earnings soaring at more than four times the rate of other workers' pay have sparked outrage among trade unions. Engineer Tomkins stoked the debate in May by announcing it had handed boss Jim Nicol £6.9m last year.
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[ 05 August 2006: Message edited by: blake 3:17 ]