Getting Away With It

Britain's top executives are now paid 143 times the wages of an average employee, according to a study. Executive salaries have increased dramatically in relation to most workers, said the High Pay Centre. 'The think tank has called on the Government to act after it found that in 1998 the average chief executive of a FTSE 100 was paid 47 times the pay of their average employee. The centre's director Deborah Hargreaves said: "Britain's executives have not got so much better over the past two decades. The only reason why their pay has increased so rapidly compared to their employees is that they are able to get away with it".' (Daily Express, 18 August) So much for the notion that there is some sort of morality behind the jungle warfare of the wages and profit system. RD