The Most Promising Push Yet for a Maximum Wage August 23rd, 2009 Across the pond, in the UK, the idea of capping income is suddenly starting to make a respectable splash.
By Sam Pizzigati The Great Depression gave us the minimum wage. Might we now see a “maximum wage,” thanks to the Great Recession? That prospect now seems to have entered into the realm of political possibility. Last week, in a top British daily, 100 progressive luminaries published an open letter that has shoved the notion of a maximum wage onto the global public policy radar screen. These 100 leaders — a group that included nationally known members of Parliament, Britain’s top labor union official, scholars, journalists, and widely respected human rights activists — called on the UK government to “take the moral lead” and establish a “High Pay Commission” to end the “unjust rewards” still relentlessly cascading into the pockets of Britain’s financial and corporate elite. “Banking and executive remuneration packages have reached excessive levels,” read the open letter. “We believe now is the time for government to take decisive action.” What sort of action? The High Pay Commission, the letter urged, “should consider proposals to restrict excessive remuneration” via “maximum wage ratios and bonus taxation.” In Britain, as in the United States, billions in taxpayer dollars have gone to bail out banks whose top executives recklessly drove their enterprises straight into the ditch as they chased after personal pay windfalls. Those same banks, buoyed up by bailout subsidies, are now restuffing power-suit pockets. Virtually every leading politician in the UK is “talking tough” against this new bonus binge. But in Britain, again as in the United States, the tough talk has generated little action. Earlier this month, for instance, Britain’s top bank regulator backed down on bonus restrictions announced this past February. The original rules would have mandated banks to defer two-thirds of all bonus outlays for three years. The new rules redefine that mandate into a “guidance” banks can park in some obscure file cabinet and ignore. This continuing failure to challenge rewards at the top can only spell trouble, notes the organizer of last week’s call for a High Pay Commission. “I think all of us understand that greed and excess fueled the economic crisis and brought down the whole economy,” explained Gavin Hayes, the general secretary of the London-based Compass think tank, on a BBC national broadcast. “Now is the right moment to rein in high pay. Otherwise months, years down the line, we could end up having another crash.”.... full article: http://extremeinequality.org/?p=181 Sent via my BlackBerry Device from Vodacom - let your email find you! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
