Wayne’s world hits the boardroom

IS SOMETHING WRONG when you read the Daily Mail and The Sun in the same 24 hours and find yourself agreeing with sentiments expressed in both? I blame Sinn Féin's Arthur Morgan.

His proposal that Government ministers, senior public servants and chief executives of public sector companies would have their pay capped at €100,000 annually got me thinking.

Yesterday, the Mail was poking fun at Colleen Rooney. The headline quoted Colleen's claim that “We deserved this break” in what they called “a lavish Dubai getaway” as “she enjoys FOURTH holiday this year”. And, yes, four does seem higher than average.

The Mail proclaimed that Colleen and Wayne have been:

Shamelessly soaking up the sun while the rest of Britain wallows in the aftermath of the most savage austerity measures for more than 60 years.

And so on to The Sun today who, in their “City” business page, report on a story also found across British, Irish and international media today.

A survey by Income Data Services, a pay monitoring agency, has found, according to The Financial Times:

Directors of FTSE 100 companies saw their total earnings soar an average of 55% during the past year.”

Yep, a whopping 55%!

The chief executives of the top 100 companies on the British Stock Exchange took home an average of £4.9million in 2009, “88 times the pay of average British workers”.

No wonder Wayne felt the need to negotiate a wage increase – he was getting left behind by the suits!

There are varying degrees of outrage across the media today about the increases.

“Directors under fire” said The Financial Times. “FTSE bosses criticised” ran The Guardian. The Irish Times have the story titled, “Earnings of FTSE 100 chiefs up 55% over past year.”

So, needing a bit more in the outrage department, I was forced to rely on The Sun. “Top bosses raise their pay 55% to £4.9million” was the headline, pointing out the reality overlooked by many other papers that these executives can set their own wages and working conditions. You could get just over two-and-a-half Rooneys for one average chief executive, what with Rooney now earning £13million annually.

Wayne is also one of those elite workers who has the power to negotiate their own wages and extra holidays too.

And then, there is the opening paragraph which sums it up:

Britain's top bosses trousered average pay hikes of 55% in the past year – to £4.9million each. A shock survey found the crunch is a thing of the past in boardrooms – and executives are being helped to rack up huge bonuses.

The Sun also says:

Average income from pay and bonuses for bosses of FTSE 100 firms was ten times the amount they would have got in 2000 – and more than 200 times the UK's average salary of £23,500.

I am not sure why their figure is different from The Financial Times but it did fuel my outrage even more

Britain's highest-paid boss is Bart Becht, who runs consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser. They make Air Wick fresheners, among other things. Becht took home a meagre £90million-plus in 2009 – or 6.9 Rooneys, if you’re a Manchester United fan.

I wonder what trends are evident in Irish executive pay this year.