£350k is enough for anyone - says Labour!

[Zigenare]

Are you envious of other people's salary? Then vote Labour! Nobody will earn more than £350k!

[WTFH]

Are you envious of other people's salary? Then vote Labour! Nobody will earn more than £350k!

Is that per week?
Before deductions?

They should put it on the side of a bus.

[DaveB]

Are you envious of other people's salary? Then vote Labour! Nobody will earn more than £350k!

Except it's not quite like that is it.

It's public sector Chief Execs only, and it's tied to the living wage, so as employees earn more, so do they.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said workers and consumers would "take back control" under a new business model if Labour wins the election.
In a speech in Westminster, he said company boards would include workers and elected members, giving them greater influence over pay structure.
And public sector chief executives would not be allowed to earn more than 20 times someone on the living wage.
That would mean a maximum salary of about £350,000.
The plans were part of an overall vision to create a business model that was not based on the "unfettered pursuit of profit maximisation".

Still, it's a good pitch for a job as a Headline writer for the Wail.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

So, you're running your 100 million quid business, and you need a CEO that has experience of running businesses of that magnitude. You find a guy, he's damn good, boosting profits of numerous businesses from 100mil to 500mil in just 2 years. Even if he cost 100mil he'd be worth it, to mitigate risk and maximise profit.

But you can only pay him £350k under the law.

Meanwhile another business that's only 5 million quid needs help. They can't pay much, but they can pay £350k since that's chump change.

What happens next? :S

Likewise with it being public sector, the NHS needs a guy to fix their leaky ship that's pissing money away, but they can only pay £350k whereas a private firm can pay £3,500,000 + bonus... all the talent leaves the public sector...

At least they can get Capita in to sort it out, I guess.

[filthy1980]

So, you're running your 100 million quid business, and you need a CEO that has experience of running businesses of that magnitude. You find a guy, he's damn good, boosting profits of numerous businesses from 100mil to 500mil in just 2 years. Even if he cost 100mil he'd be worth it, to mitigate risk and maximise profit.

But you can only pay him £350k under the law.

Meanwhile another business that's only 5 million quid needs help. They can't pay much, but they can pay £350k since that's chump change.

What happens next? :S

Likewise with it being public sector, the NHS needs a guy to fix their leaky ship that's pissing money away, but they can only pay £350k whereas a private firm can pay £3,500,000 + bonus... all the talent leaves the public sector...

At least they can get Capita in to sort it out, I guess.

also it's about setting benchmarks and precedents

start with Public Sector CEO's then quickly use that to extend into the private sector

[VirtualMonkey]

also it's about setting benchmarks and precedents

start with Public Sector CEO's then quickly use that to extend into the private sector

one word...footballers

[filthy1980]

one word...footballers

they make terrible CEO's

[NotAllThere]

So, you're running your 100 million quid business, and you need a CEO that has experience of running businesses of that magnitude. You find a guy, he's damn good, boosting profits of numerous businesses from 100mil to 500mil in just 2 years. Even if he cost 100mil he'd be worth it, to mitigate risk and maximise profit.

I'm not really convinced by that argument. First of all, it's rarely one individual who brings profit in, it's usually a combination. And even where it appears to be, it's damn hard to prove it was anything he did*. And finally, is he really worth 2000x more than the chump on a 50K salary?

It's the same with wine. Does a £500 bottle of champers really taste 5 times as good as a £100 bottle. (The answer is no, for the benefit of poor people).

Once you get to the executive level of major companies it's not so much to do with ability. It's just a way of keeping score, and those executives who fail just get another appointment with massively high remuneration. Take a look at what's happened with the Thomas Cook board members.


* There are of course some with a proven track record, but they're a very small minority

[VirtualMonkey]

I'm not really convinced by that argument. First of all, it's rarely one individual who brings profit in, it's usually a combination. And even where it appears to be, it's damn hard to prove it was anything he did*. And finally, is he really worth 2000x more than the chump on a 50K salary?

It's the same with wine. Does a £500 bottle of champers really taste 5 times as good as a £100 bottle. (The answer is no, for the benefit of poor people).

Once you get to the executive level of major companies it's not so much to do with ability. It's just a way of keeping score, and those executives who fail just get another appointment with massively high remuneration. Take a look at what's happened with the Thomas Cook board members.


* There are of course some with a proven track record, but they're a very small minority

[edison]

So, you're running your 100 million quid business, and you need a CEO that has experience of running businesses of that magnitude. You find a guy, he's damn good, boosting profits of numerous businesses from 100mil to 500mil in just 2 years. Even if he cost 100mil he'd be worth it, to mitigate risk and maximise profit.

But you can only pay him £350k under the law.

Meanwhile another business that's only 5 million quid needs help. They can't pay much, but they can pay £350k since that's chump change.

What happens next? :S

Likewise with it being public sector, the NHS needs a guy to fix their leaky ship that's pissing money away, but they can only pay £350k whereas a private firm can pay £3,500,000 + bonus... all the talent leaves the public sector...

At least they can get Capita in to sort it out, I guess.

The problem is if you get one person in at say, £3.5m, the rest of the exec board would be on say 150-250k e.g. the FD. I can't think of many organisations where the CEO is earning 10-15 times the rest of the board. One person isn't going to fix the NHS either. You'd need to do something similar with hundreds of individual NHS trusts and commissioning groups. Before you know it, you've got to spend a billion pounds extra in staff costs.

Even that isn't really going to help as there is a big shortage of frontline staff like doctors and nurses. It's easy to say, pay lots more in salaries to staff but it needs to come out of higher taxes. Lots of people say they want better public sector services but won't pay more tax for it. It's also too simplistic to say that all the talent works in the private sector. There are a lot of good people in the public/not for profit sector who have moved over from senior level private sector jobs.

There are plenty of examples of private sector companies that pissed money away before going out of business so they're no different to the public sector - there are good efficient organisations and bad inefficient ones.