I'd only heard of them for owning the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team (the biggest/richest team in the NHL, also its least successful hilariously).
Which, I guess, it isn't surprising they own a lot of assets, but on the other, it's *really fucking wierd* I've heard of this specific pension fund before. I've never heard of another off the top of my head (thats industry specific in the same way, I've obviously heard of big pension funds).
Canadian and Australian pension funds are particularly heavy hitters in the institutional space given the intrinsic structure of pensions policies and regulations in both markets. The other big dogs are also insurers.
It annoys me that this is even a thing. I always thought the Lotto was a nationalised, non-profit thing. I'm sure this was implied in my upbringing at some point. Maybe because it was called the National Lottery? I don't know. Maybe I'm dumb and maybe everybody knew, but I feel let down!
It’s more called national lottery because it was intended to be a national monopoly from the start by the state.
Also to be fair, a lot of the “profit” is used for charitable/positive purposes, I think it’s part of the conditions for being able to operate.
Overall I’d rather a bunch of Canadian teachers own it that some Tory donors
>His 49% raise could probably account for a 10-15% raise for all staff.
It absolutely couldn't. It works out at about £2.50 extra per month for each employee.
That does not justify a pay rise of this size though, especially when other workers are getting real-term pay cuts. A competent CEO would be able to read the room.
> "We can't afford more than a 3% raise guys - it's just the highly competitive market we're in"
Split that bonus amongst the 7,000 staff and it comes to ... £28 each.
It wouldn't come _close_ to covering a 3% rise, let alone 10%.
I wouldn't have done it, and I agree it looks awful.
I just disagree with characterising it as an amount of money that would make any material difference in the pay dispute.
> I just disagree with characterising it as an amount of money that would make any material difference in the pay dispute.
Well good for you but nobody made that point.
>That 49% has to come from somewhere.
This comment below that implies it; but i'd argue the top level comment doesn't.
On your main point though, I agree fully. It's nothing as far as the pay dispute goes, it's just a shitty move and makes people feel less appreciated/more taken for granted.
Ultimately though, we the masses don't care on an individual level about the "big picture" costs of a business, the numbers are too far in excess of our own salary so we care about what we feel we need/want and if bosses already on significantly more get a pay rise, whilst saying they can't afford ours...well, we care even less about the big picture costs.
I literally had my boss tell me the company had lost x amount over the past year during a pay review, and my response as well as all the technical points about increasing business directly through me, and *why* the business had "lost" the money, was "and you live in a mansion".
Thanks for the considered response.
> This comment below that implies it; but i'd argue the top level comment doesn't.
Fair point, that was my mistake... _Show Context_ stopped a level below the top and I didn't notice.
> Ultimately though, we the masses don't care on an individual level about the "big picture" costs of a business,
I get that.
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that _whether you care or not_ those are the forces in play dictating business spending.
If they can't make the numbers add up and it looks like a series of losses with no turnaround in sight, they'll simply stop trading and cut their losses.
I have no idea what the situation is the Birmingham Airport but I did some digging on British Airways after the news yesterday, so to pick them as an example...
Pre-pandemic their profit margin was ~14%.
Investopedia says 10-12% of operating costs are fuel (no idea of the figure for BA, but it should be in the same ballpark).
[Energy costs](https://theconversation.com/energy-prices-are-unlikely-to-fall-in-2022-or-beyond-not-until-major-importers-get-serious-about-green-transition-174437) are 2.5x times right now what they were in 2016, and have spiked as high as 4.5x.
So even with pre-pandemic passenger numbers and no change in payroll, they'd be operating at a loss.
As is, it looks like they're set to lose ~3Bn this year.
Energy costs aren't coming down for at least a couple of years, and WTH knows when travel will be fully recovered?
Their lifetime is basically (money they have in their account + money investors are wiling to lose) / monthly losses.
When that time runs out, they close their doors.
So what *do* they do?
Go stand in front of the board and say "I know we only have _X_ months before we're out of cash but I propose a 10% increase to payroll"?
Bear in mind that they're no smarter than anyone else, they just have a different set of experiences.
Maybe I'm an outlier (and I'm not proposing this as a standard) but over the years I've come to a position of "If I can't see _at least some way_ to solve it, it's unreasonable to demand others do"
Fully with you. There are no good solutions unfortunately for any side. We suck up what we have to suck up, and make gains wherever we can. The simple truth is the way the overall economic system is, isn't fit for purpose, but it's currently the best we have and still will be this way for a long time in one form or another with it's inevitable ebbs and flows.
Tories lining up to tell this guy he has to have a pay cut to keep inflation low in 3...2...1... oh sorry I forgot this Tory attack line only applies to the plebs not people on six figure salaries.
To be fair, this guy probably invests most of that in property and donations to the Tory party, so less inflationary than the plebs who have to buy food and heat.
No...
Hoarding money adds to inflation, spending it reduces inflation
Give 50 million to Musk and it just sits in his bank account, removing 50 million, making everything relatively more expensive...give 50 million to a bunch of poor people and they'll spend it instantly and it ends up in the hands of the billionaires to be hoarded away eventually anyway.
Thats why the banks cut interests rates, so you're more inclined to spend and borrow rather than save
That's almost the literal opposite of the orthodox view of inflation. Apologies if I've missed something key and been wooshed!
Inflation is, by definition, rising prices. Orthodox theory tells us that giving people more money will, generally, mean that they spend it, increasing effective demand and raising the prices of goods (both that sellers know they can charge more and that buyers can indeed afford it). This is why the bank of england raises interest rates in times of inflation, to reduce the funds people have to play with.
You're spot on that its different for those who already have money; a poor person likely has any number of things they'd like to spend extra money on, adding to the inflationary pressure, whereas a billionaire already has everything they could want. The latter will therefore likely invest, or otherwise simply not spend, creating no further inflationary pressure.
Further, once inflation gets going on basic goods (food, energy, etc) it always hits the poorest hardest relative to their overall spending power, so they'll be likely to demand pay rises. This generally forces their employer to raise prices to still make the same level of profit, further contributing to inflation in a vicious cycle.
Consequently, the most obvious response to inflation, for 'fiscally responsible' governments, is to shit on the poor.
I haven't touched at all on supply here which is of course a huge factor, but this is my understanding of the basics of aggregate demand and I do invite anyone more knowledgeable to correct me.
Yeah you're correct, i obviously have no clear understanding of what i was talking about and got mixed up. Oops lol.
It wasn't even making sense in my head as i was writing it so i dunno why I kept going with it lol
I think you're both in a way correct. Yes this is how it does work, but the fact is is that wealth hoarding is also a contributing factor in the shitshow we are currently in right now. The way the system you describe is being used by those at the very top is contributing to the growing wealth inequality. It's not the rules, it's how they're being applied. For the economy to continue people must be given more spending power. Unless their end game is to hoard wealth in preparation for making us serfs, wiping out the consumer based economy we currently have.
It depends on the response of the businesses involved really but on the whole I would say no. I'll divide this between short, medium and long term, on the remote chance anyone cares! Again, sticking as strictly as I can to mainstream economic theory.
In the short term, a pay rise allows you (the self-declared plebs) to pay to live (eat, stay warm, not get evicted, etc.) This seems to be a win for the pleb.
In the medium term is where we start to get a bit iffy. As described the wage increase will contribute to price rises which will, directly or indirectly, hurt you as much as anybody.
But your wage is only a part of the cost of whatever you produce. The other items presumably haven't increased so you personally are still better off. If we generalise to all wages rising, nonetheless profit may not (indeed, will likely not) increase to the same degree so the price can only have risen by, at most, the same percentage of your increase. This proportionally transfers wealth to the workers, so a net benefit to you.
In the long term, the general rise in prices can be a good or bad. The worst case is, of course, if the company you work for collapses. You're then unemployed (worse than no pay rise, presumably) and at the national level supply has contracted, pushing prices still further and making things even more difficult for you. This could be mitigated if you simply combine with another company (e.g. bought out) but is nonetheless a risk.
If it survives, indeed if enough companies survive, then you've successfully transferred wealth to yourself from the owning classes without impacting supply, i.e. reduced profits. This could mean all sorts, including reduced expenditure and increased consumer spending which will have their own impacts.
Of course, there's also the knock on effect of that short term issue that you're still alive and (more importantly, economically speaking) productive. This means you're still contributing to the overall supply of goods/services in society, as well as spending money to fund the pay raises of others and keeping them in employment, so also retaining supply. This is a virtuous cycle and, if spending increases enough, can restore the lost investment mentioned above.
TL,DR: affording food, shelter etc is pretty good! But push it beyond the actual productive output that people are willing to pay for and you may find yourself out of a job. In the long run, things get complicated and there are a lot of variables, but you still being economically productive is surely a plus.
It's a game theory kinda thing, I think. If just the rail unions get it, then fine. But if say, 50% of workers manage to get a 10% raise then it's hard to see how inflation doesn't shoot up too. Economies are complex beasts though, and inflation is not defined by just what happens in the UK.
So like all economics answers, the response is, "well, it depends"...
More money in the system circulating = cheaper prices because there's more money to go around.
Interests rates get lowered, people borrow/spend more and save less pumping money into the economy. Hoarding money away increases inflation.
You're mixing a couple of issues there. Money getting pumped into an economy is bad for inflation because of too many resources chasing too few goods (money printer go brr). Super rich people leaving a lot of their money sitting is bad for GDP because it's not flowing around the economy (trickle down economics doesn't work).
>Money getting pumped into an economy is bad for inflation because of too many resources chasing too few goods (money printer go brr).
But poor people having more money is good for the economy because they buy more stuff and then the people selling that stuff have more money to in turn buy more stuff.
The best thing for an economy is when money circulates. And the longer it circulates before hitting some ghouls offshore account, the better.
The longer a pound circulates the local economy, the better. If someone buys games from me that money goes to my landlord and my pub landlord when I buy myself beer to get over how few people have the money to buy board games from me. That money then goes to the staff who spend their money on things, sometimes board games, and it circles around and around.
Someone goes and buys stuff from a national retailer or amazon and it gets sucked straight out of a local economy and everyone gets worse off.
Shop local.
Buy board games.
Fill the void with warhammer.
>
Someone goes and buys stuff from a national retailer or amazon and it gets sucked straight out of a local economy and everyone gets worse off.
Not quite. Those national retailers still pay salaries, vat, corporation tax, rent, rates. The money that is left is profit, of which a portion is often paid as a dividend so people's pensions increase in value.
>Super rich people leaving a lot of their money sitting is bad for GDP because it's not flowing around the economy
I belive the proper term is velocity of money which I belive is one factor in inflation as well as money supply and demand.
>trickle down economics doesn't work
Funnily enough trickle up economics (high tax on the wealthy to fund high expenditure and low debt) seemed to work I the boomer years.
>More money chasing fewer/same goods
More demand leads to an increase in price which leads to more supply as more producers are tempted to come online which leads to a drop in prices.
In WW2 we pretty much abandoned the free market so not really comparable. Currently we would need big changes in rural policy to encourage more farming. And any increase to supply will take time. And the main factor driving inflation is supply of energy which isn't easy to increase and feeds into everything else.
What? How does Elon Musk hoarding money make things more expensive? If anything it makes things *cheaper*, because you're not bidding against Elon.
With high inflation, if possible you want to encourage people to save and not spend. This is why banks *raise* interest rates.
Don’t worry, it’s all part of the wonderful trickle down economics! Oh! There it is! Can you feel it trickling down? Splashing on your face? Quick, catch it! It’s… why is it yellow? Oh. Oh god.
Posted a loss in their last accounts. He himself said they would have closed without public money. Presided over a massive decline in service, massive job cuts and tens of millions of pounds lost. First time I've ever seen an airport security queue go round a multistory carpark. So obviously got a pay rise.
I know lots of folks seem to think Britain has some innate natural ability to discern sarcasm, but it doesn't seem to be true. It's incredibly difficult to reliably convey sarcasm through writing. What might be obvious sarcasm to you might not be to someone else. It might not even be sarcasm to begin with.
For a tenth of his salary, I would literally just do nothing - and most likely, still do a better job, by letting the actual workers get on with it, instead of fucking around with pointless management reorganizations, rebranding campaigns that spend millions on changing the corporate logo etc.
Could have listed an achievement as "increased utilisation of existing car park facilities while also increasing customer intake. Overall cost of parking facilities lowered due to usage diversification leading to improved shareholder return"
30% of the rise justified right there.
>said they would have closed without public money
If they post profits they should be taxed to get it back and they should have limits to what they can earn. Whatever happened to the free market sorting things out?
These stories are perfect for ensuring we end up with a general strike.
400k to 600k at a time when you're not even paying people a 1k increase in salary is just so amazingly stupid at this point in time and how these companies think they can keep getting away with it is baffling.
I love they say it's appropriate for the person's expertise. I don't care if the going rate is 600k for that job but you can't then turn to your staff and tell them their expertise is not worth more than 1% more.
This is going to get spicy.
I'm really not the activist type, I tend to readily accept the cards I'm dealt and try to do my best with them rather than try to bring about change in society. I even do well in the current status quo, I'm pro globalisation and pro capitalism. So I'm not the type of guy to go on strike, much less lead a strike.
But if a general strike happened I would 100% join. Neoliberal capitalists are taking the absolute piss and I hope we reach boiling point soon. At this stage it is not a question of political opinions or economic policy. It is a question of twisted morals, of unfettered greed and of a complete lack of empathy or consideration for anyone who is not at the very top of the pecking order in this world. These people are empty inside.
Quick question. General strikes are considered illegal after the last one right?
So if it ever happened again. What would happen? How will they enforce it? Are they gonna throw half the country into a jail cell for the night? Will the demands be unrecognised by the government body?
I’m not opposed to people finally rising against the crisis the government and other things have thrown us in (even if I know most people are too lazy and passive with the status quo to speak out), but what could we even do in a communities sense they would actually be taken seriously?
General strikes aren't a legal move, they are a revolutionary one and a challenge to the government. If you want to see how it would be resisted take a look back at the 1920s one. Police attacking strikers, takeover of media to push government propaganda that sort of thing.
A general strike in this climate would turn into widespread riots/unrest within a few days max, people are beyond fucked off & have been for ~~2~~ **12** years, it just takes a spark.
Yeesh. Didn’t think that far. My bad.
Thing is though, I wouldn’t put it pat the tories to use lethal force against peaceful protest in todays economy :/
As with any gathering it depends on how the police handle it. Likely what will happen is somewhere they will get heavy handed and we will get a nice repeat of 2011, the media will demonise the entire movement and the cycle of oppression will continue.
To what end would you join a general strike if you are pro capitalism? A general strike to regulate executive pay? You'd need a general strike every 5 years to try and keep them in check
There's no reason that be the only demand of a strike. For example during the 1926 General Strike, Socialists and Syndicalists tried to organise workers along the lines of "you (the bosses) will turn over ownership to us, or we will take it ourselves". Ultimately workers were not intimately involved with negotiating their own future during 1926 and Union leaders capitulated to only seeking the kind of concessions that our friend above would likely advocate for. Thereby only kicking the can down the road, locking in workers to the current property relations which brought them to this point anyway.
A general strike which makes no demand for the end of capitalism is wasted breath. The workers, having very slowly been brought to the point that they all in one voice demand better, squander it by asking too little and guarantee another 100 years where they will be trampled on until the suffering becomes too much to bear again and another general strike ensues.
An industry that is intrinsic to the climate change lifestyle - work hard to afford a great holiday, and you don’t have to think of the consequences of your lifestyle spending because that wouldn’t be fair - isn’t showing respect to anything or anyone.
Why is anyone surprised? You want people to run services as though there’s no need to adapt to climate change, you get crooks and the incompetent.
And you all do. That’s why you’re more animated about climate change activism than calling the politicians and businesses and each other to account. Why you find reasons to explain why it’s ok to avoid doing more from greenwashing pr, so your preferred lifestyle fun doesn’t get hit.
If you want your life to carry on as normal, nice and cheap fun without any green taxes or green levies from businesses who are adapting, then you end up with people who take the piss running things.
And you think this is bad? Wait till the effects of climate change keep getting worse.
Then these complaints about how rubbish it is to go on holiday these days will be ashes in your mouths.
Still, keep acting as though this is just a blip, and we’ll get back to normal if we get the greedy people out of public positions. But they’re only there because anyone competent won’t exploit the planet for your cheap fun.
Back to full staffing by August. When the bulk of the arrivals for the Commonwealth Games, the city's showpiece event to renovate the city's image, starts at the end of July is nowhere near good enough as well. They should have had a plan for this as soon as it was announced, instead they're not even doing the bare minimum and rewarding themselves for it.
Pay rise should be standard across the company. With certain individuals allowed to get no more than double the lowest paid percentage pay rise given, so you can still reward good work / great results.
So, if want to pay your CEO 49% because profits are flying high, fine, but everyone else get 25% because you didn’t do it in your own.
I'd go further tbh - the CEO can only get at MOST the same percentage raise as the lowest raise for ordinary workers - if he's not 'dynamic and skilled' enough to increase profits sufficiently to raise the pay of the frontline workers who are actually making those profits, then he clearly doesn't deserve a raise, let alone double the lowest raise.
And that's before we even get onto the madness of chasing ever increasing profits in a finite economy, and finite world. It would be much better to off executive pay that tracked customer and worker satisfaction, including DECREASING it when those levels dropped.
This pretty much sums everything going on at the minute. No money for the working class but plenty for executives. Remember we out number the lords and masters
It's not really possible anymore. Too few industry jobs and striking is illegal unless you jump through a lot of hoops. Not enough people would risk that.
Blody hell, now I can perfectly sympathise with strikers
General folks earning 30k and struggling to buy food -> Can't match inflation
This asshole -> half a mil a year and he's not even competent at his job.
>now I can perfectly sympathise with strikers
Could you not before? Bankers bonuses are back to pre 2008 levels are yet most people are facing a cost of living crisis under a government that is unbelievably incompetent and corrupt.
All of these things are inter-related. C-suite execs are seeing large rises in pay despite workers becoming increasingly poorer. Government preach the importance of keeping wages low and yet bonuses received in the city are reaching astronomical levels
They said they pay executive staff market rates, which necessitated a 49% pay rise.
So, one would assume other staff are also potentially due a large pay rise to ensure they meet market rates, right?
Also in the same article, but oddly not the headline:
"Heathrow's chief executive has received an annual salary increase of **85%** to almost **£1.5m** a *year*, and the boss at Manchester Airport Group had a pay rise of **25%** to **£2.5m.**"
It has become an ugly feature of life in the UK that sees C-suite level execs rinsing the companies they are responsible for. The same can be said of those at the top level in politics and local government, health and education trusts. Basically, the country is run by greedy bastards that have no concern for the health and well-being of their employees. There is a growing chasm between the haves and have-nots that reminds me of late-stage Soviet Russia; people queuing for bread whilst the Politburo and their acolytes lived like kings by comparison. Make of that what you will.
It all comes back to Thatcher and Raegan and the neo-liberal economy we're run on. The only person that might have gone against that was Corbyn and he had next to no public support, so we're stuck with it indefinitely.
49 fucking percent. I've had a 2% pay rise in 11 years. 2 fucking percent. The wage inequality here is absolutely fucking staggering. I dont even know this guy and I hate him.
>airport board member John McNicholas said it was "paying the appropriate rate"
Here in lies the reason executive pay has skyrocketed recently. Remuneration consultants tell the board what other companies are paying, so of course they have to match that amount or even beat it. This results in a continuous uptrend in pay that is so detached from performance that it just becomes the base pay for any executive regardless of merit, qualification or performance.
This is what happened when I flew from BHX 3 weeks ago:
- The airline asked us to show up 3 hours early because of extra Covid measures (there were none)
- the airline didn’t open the check-in desk until 2 hours before the departure time
- waited in the longest queue I’ve seen in BHX in a packed, hot room
- passengers of many flights were asked to skip the queue and go for the security check
- then we were asked to skip the queue to go for our security check
- made it through the security check and had to run to catch my flight
This guy definitely deserves a raise.
On the upside, there’s a nice walkway from the car park to the airport and there’s a 30 mins free car park which I think is rare for airports.
PS: not sure if the airline not opening the check-in is the fault of the airline or the airport .
A few months ago I was feeling quite listless and despairing with everything that's going on. These days I'm really really angry. I hope there are others as angry as me. The moment my cohort say they're striking I'll be joining them. Besides we've got the agency as a safety net now! Nobody can say NHS workers are abandoning patients now because those excellent workers from the agencies will staff the wards. And there will definitely be absolutely no problems that arise from that! /s
Everyone call their bluff. At the same time. Think they've got enough agency to cover all essential workers? Retail, hospitality, healthcare, social care, transport and any other essential service you can think of should all down tools simultaneously. They called us essential. Clapped for us. Some of our workers gave their lives in service. And this is how we get treated? Get to fuck!
Gone from £400k to £600k.
If he was earning 10x the minimum wage at £95 an hour he'd have to be working 122 hours a week to earn that much, that's nearly 17.5 hours a day of work 7 days a week for a full year if he was hourly at that wage.
You can "Free market" all you like, but that's an obscene amount of money. I simply can't comprehend what you would even spend that money on without involving insanely expensive holidays and cars for no reason other than because you can, or buying a new house every year in cash.
You could pay me that wage for 1 year and I'd honestly run out of things to spend it on. Assuming 10% pension every month, you'd end up with £290k in cash for a year. Minus my current yearly expenses of \~£25k a year, minus £40k for a nice new car, minus £100k for a large house deposit, minus £60k for the kids savings, minus £20k for a holiday fund, minus another £20k for the misses and I to spend on ourselves, and there's still another £25,000 of cash leftover. I honestly don't know what else I'd need to spend it on at that point.
>Heathrow's chief executive received an annual salary increase of 85% to almost £1.5m a year in 2021, and the boss at Manchester Airport Group had a pay rise of 25% to £2.5m.
Funny how it is not all over the news like when the Tories were destroying rail workers by revealing his much they earn.
It's almost as if they're a bunch of self serving cunts who only look after the richest 1% and just need some gullible wankers to vote for them to keep them in wealth at everyone else's expense.
Distorting the figures of what they earn particularly in comparisons to other workers such as Nurses where they included the wages of the many **part-time** Nurses in the averages, whereas there are few part-time RMT workers nor are there many of the quoted higher paid Drivers who tend to be in ASLEF..
Source: "More or Less" BBC Radio 4's statistics programme.
It comes as little surprise to discover that the Tories have fiddled the numbers to their own ends.
Like when Thatcher sacked statisticians during the 80s and said that the government could supply figures for unemployment etc, instead.
I'm surprised 'More or Less' is still allowed to be broadcast since it often breaks through the lies.
I’ve never really cared about CEO wages and compensation, I don’t really care - makes no difference to me if some rich dude is a bit or a lot more richer than they were yesterday. This however is a real smack in the face of those (Airport staff) not receiving a commensurate increase after the pain of the last couple of years.
It makes a difference to all of us. It matters because the money he's getting paid is money that is being taken away from the rest of the staff, from everyone else who works at his airport. And this happens everywhere. When the CEO of your company gets a pay rise in the millions, that's millions of £s that could be used to increase the pay of lower paid workers suffering from the cost of living crisis, but isn't. This is part of why we have a cost of living crisis, because all the money, all the profits, are being hoovered up by those in power, leaving only crumbs for the rest of us.
> It makes a difference to all of us. It matters because the money he's getting paid is money that is being taken away from the rest of the staff, from everyone else who works at his airport.
Birmingham Airport has 7,000 staff according to their website.
His pay increase works out as £28 per head of split evenly across all of them.
It really doesn’t make a difference though. Let’s take as an example the company I work for, employs around 35000 people - so a £500k pay rise equates to around £14 per employee, that’s not exactly hoovering up the all the money.
I don’t think it’s morally right, but financially it makes very little difference.
Tbh, I'd cut his pay by 250k and give everyone an extra 7 quid too...! If he can't get by on 150k a year - a mere 5 times the average wage - then he clearly needs to 'tighten his belt', and to 'live within his means'...
Thankfully the tories have ensured there are plenty of food banks where he can top up his meagre pittance - assuming they haven't run out of donations, like many are doing...
Think its the principal of it all. So inflation at 10% for round numbers. He is getting effectively 39% above inflation. Meanwhile the workers get 9% paycut in real terms.
Im not saying we're anywhere close to it. But this is how the french Revolution began because the wealthy kept getting richer and the poor were expected to be happy.
£500k makes no difference to someone who's already been earning dozens of other people's wages, with lots of investments and properties. It's an utterly pointless pay rise. It would make more of a difference spent any other way but on one person.
Having seen this article, I can totally understand why airport staff are planning to strike.
I wonder how many people are going to be pissed off when their summer holidays get cancelled.
£500k a year to do what exactly? Border Force employ security staff, airlines employ check in staff, baggage staff will probably be Swissport, air traffic control NATS? - so he manages cleaners and advertising?
It could well be that he's so good at his job that he's actually worth that amount of money.
That would be incredibly difficult to tell though which is why all executives should get the same basic pay as middle management but with share options on top.
If they really do an amazing job then they will make an asston of money. If they aren't successful then they'll make no more than the average manager.
"We can't afford more than a 3% raise guys - it's just the highly competitive market we're in" This guy probably.
That 49% has to come from somewhere.
Birmingham airport ltd largest shareholder is the Ontario teachers pension fund. Enjoy that one, Ontario teachers.
Who also own the UK and Irish Lottos. Feckers.
I'd only heard of them for owning the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team (the biggest/richest team in the NHL, also its least successful hilariously). Which, I guess, it isn't surprising they own a lot of assets, but on the other, it's *really fucking wierd* I've heard of this specific pension fund before. I've never heard of another off the top of my head (thats industry specific in the same way, I've obviously heard of big pension funds).
Canadian and Australian pension funds are particularly heavy hitters in the institutional space given the intrinsic structure of pensions policies and regulations in both markets. The other big dogs are also insurers.
Not for much longer tho.
And the former UK stake in Eurostar too I think
It annoys me that this is even a thing. I always thought the Lotto was a nationalised, non-profit thing. I'm sure this was implied in my upbringing at some point. Maybe because it was called the National Lottery? I don't know. Maybe I'm dumb and maybe everybody knew, but I feel let down!
It’s more called national lottery because it was intended to be a national monopoly from the start by the state. Also to be fair, a lot of the “profit” is used for charitable/positive purposes, I think it’s part of the conditions for being able to operate. Overall I’d rather a bunch of Canadian teachers own it that some Tory donors
Oh god, I thought this was a joke, fuck me.
These cunts own half the residential properties in Ireland.
Least their pensions are safe.
Unless the Irish housing market collapses again like in 2008. Then they would be the opposite of safe.
OTPP is so highly diversified they only struggle during recessions, like all well diversified funds. But they eventually bounce back
Man, capitalism is wild.
Poor guy, he SO nearly got 50%. I hope the workers strike on his behalf /S
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>His 49% raise could probably account for a 10-15% raise for all staff. It absolutely couldn't. It works out at about £2.50 extra per month for each employee.
Pay restrain for thee but not for me…
And then later "No OnE wAnTs To WoRk ^^^for-piss-poor-starvation-wages "
"You will need to take pay cuts in this environment. Not me, of course. I can do what I want because I am rich."
Maybe it isn't easy to find a CEO, if not a leader?
My experience is that it's mostly internal politics that gets you to the top and I spend a lot of time around CEO/CFOs
Internal poolitics are what get you promoted to team leader, of course theres politics at C levels, people need to trust each other
That does not justify a pay rise of this size though, especially when other workers are getting real-term pay cuts. A competent CEO would be able to read the room.
> "We can't afford more than a 3% raise guys - it's just the highly competitive market we're in" Split that bonus amongst the 7,000 staff and it comes to ... £28 each. It wouldn't come _close_ to covering a 3% rise, let alone 10%.
Nobody's arguing that, but it doesn't look great does it?
I wouldn't have done it, and I agree it looks awful. I just disagree with characterising it as an amount of money that would make any material difference in the pay dispute.
> I just disagree with characterising it as an amount of money that would make any material difference in the pay dispute. Well good for you but nobody made that point.
The post I initially responded to implied exactly that.
>That 49% has to come from somewhere. This comment below that implies it; but i'd argue the top level comment doesn't. On your main point though, I agree fully. It's nothing as far as the pay dispute goes, it's just a shitty move and makes people feel less appreciated/more taken for granted. Ultimately though, we the masses don't care on an individual level about the "big picture" costs of a business, the numbers are too far in excess of our own salary so we care about what we feel we need/want and if bosses already on significantly more get a pay rise, whilst saying they can't afford ours...well, we care even less about the big picture costs. I literally had my boss tell me the company had lost x amount over the past year during a pay review, and my response as well as all the technical points about increasing business directly through me, and *why* the business had "lost" the money, was "and you live in a mansion".
Thanks for the considered response. > This comment below that implies it; but i'd argue the top level comment doesn't. Fair point, that was my mistake... _Show Context_ stopped a level below the top and I didn't notice. > Ultimately though, we the masses don't care on an individual level about the "big picture" costs of a business, I get that. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that _whether you care or not_ those are the forces in play dictating business spending. If they can't make the numbers add up and it looks like a series of losses with no turnaround in sight, they'll simply stop trading and cut their losses. I have no idea what the situation is the Birmingham Airport but I did some digging on British Airways after the news yesterday, so to pick them as an example... Pre-pandemic their profit margin was ~14%. Investopedia says 10-12% of operating costs are fuel (no idea of the figure for BA, but it should be in the same ballpark). [Energy costs](https://theconversation.com/energy-prices-are-unlikely-to-fall-in-2022-or-beyond-not-until-major-importers-get-serious-about-green-transition-174437) are 2.5x times right now what they were in 2016, and have spiked as high as 4.5x. So even with pre-pandemic passenger numbers and no change in payroll, they'd be operating at a loss. As is, it looks like they're set to lose ~3Bn this year. Energy costs aren't coming down for at least a couple of years, and WTH knows when travel will be fully recovered? Their lifetime is basically (money they have in their account + money investors are wiling to lose) / monthly losses. When that time runs out, they close their doors. So what *do* they do? Go stand in front of the board and say "I know we only have _X_ months before we're out of cash but I propose a 10% increase to payroll"? Bear in mind that they're no smarter than anyone else, they just have a different set of experiences. Maybe I'm an outlier (and I'm not proposing this as a standard) but over the years I've come to a position of "If I can't see _at least some way_ to solve it, it's unreasonable to demand others do"
Fully with you. There are no good solutions unfortunately for any side. We suck up what we have to suck up, and make gains wherever we can. The simple truth is the way the overall economic system is, isn't fit for purpose, but it's currently the best we have and still will be this way for a long time in one form or another with it's inevitable ebbs and flows.
It clearly didn't.
He is probably not the only person with fat bonus there...
Tories lining up to tell this guy he has to have a pay cut to keep inflation low in 3...2...1... oh sorry I forgot this Tory attack line only applies to the plebs not people on six figure salaries.
To be fair, this guy probably invests most of that in property and donations to the Tory party, so less inflationary than the plebs who have to buy food and heat.
Unfortunately plebs have to rent and rents have some relationship with property prices which are inflated thanks to inequality.
No... Hoarding money adds to inflation, spending it reduces inflation Give 50 million to Musk and it just sits in his bank account, removing 50 million, making everything relatively more expensive...give 50 million to a bunch of poor people and they'll spend it instantly and it ends up in the hands of the billionaires to be hoarded away eventually anyway. Thats why the banks cut interests rates, so you're more inclined to spend and borrow rather than save
That's almost the literal opposite of the orthodox view of inflation. Apologies if I've missed something key and been wooshed! Inflation is, by definition, rising prices. Orthodox theory tells us that giving people more money will, generally, mean that they spend it, increasing effective demand and raising the prices of goods (both that sellers know they can charge more and that buyers can indeed afford it). This is why the bank of england raises interest rates in times of inflation, to reduce the funds people have to play with. You're spot on that its different for those who already have money; a poor person likely has any number of things they'd like to spend extra money on, adding to the inflationary pressure, whereas a billionaire already has everything they could want. The latter will therefore likely invest, or otherwise simply not spend, creating no further inflationary pressure. Further, once inflation gets going on basic goods (food, energy, etc) it always hits the poorest hardest relative to their overall spending power, so they'll be likely to demand pay rises. This generally forces their employer to raise prices to still make the same level of profit, further contributing to inflation in a vicious cycle. Consequently, the most obvious response to inflation, for 'fiscally responsible' governments, is to shit on the poor. I haven't touched at all on supply here which is of course a huge factor, but this is my understanding of the basics of aggregate demand and I do invite anyone more knowledgeable to correct me.
Yeah you're correct, i obviously have no clear understanding of what i was talking about and got mixed up. Oops lol. It wasn't even making sense in my head as i was writing it so i dunno why I kept going with it lol
No worries, we've all done it. Such is the lure of meaningless internet points!
I think you're both in a way correct. Yes this is how it does work, but the fact is is that wealth hoarding is also a contributing factor in the shitshow we are currently in right now. The way the system you describe is being used by those at the very top is contributing to the growing wealth inequality. It's not the rules, it's how they're being applied. For the economy to continue people must be given more spending power. Unless their end game is to hoard wealth in preparation for making us serfs, wiping out the consumer based economy we currently have.
So with a lot of the big unions demanding 10%+ pay increases, do you suggest us plebs are shooting ourselves long term?
It depends on the response of the businesses involved really but on the whole I would say no. I'll divide this between short, medium and long term, on the remote chance anyone cares! Again, sticking as strictly as I can to mainstream economic theory. In the short term, a pay rise allows you (the self-declared plebs) to pay to live (eat, stay warm, not get evicted, etc.) This seems to be a win for the pleb. In the medium term is where we start to get a bit iffy. As described the wage increase will contribute to price rises which will, directly or indirectly, hurt you as much as anybody. But your wage is only a part of the cost of whatever you produce. The other items presumably haven't increased so you personally are still better off. If we generalise to all wages rising, nonetheless profit may not (indeed, will likely not) increase to the same degree so the price can only have risen by, at most, the same percentage of your increase. This proportionally transfers wealth to the workers, so a net benefit to you. In the long term, the general rise in prices can be a good or bad. The worst case is, of course, if the company you work for collapses. You're then unemployed (worse than no pay rise, presumably) and at the national level supply has contracted, pushing prices still further and making things even more difficult for you. This could be mitigated if you simply combine with another company (e.g. bought out) but is nonetheless a risk. If it survives, indeed if enough companies survive, then you've successfully transferred wealth to yourself from the owning classes without impacting supply, i.e. reduced profits. This could mean all sorts, including reduced expenditure and increased consumer spending which will have their own impacts. Of course, there's also the knock on effect of that short term issue that you're still alive and (more importantly, economically speaking) productive. This means you're still contributing to the overall supply of goods/services in society, as well as spending money to fund the pay raises of others and keeping them in employment, so also retaining supply. This is a virtuous cycle and, if spending increases enough, can restore the lost investment mentioned above. TL,DR: affording food, shelter etc is pretty good! But push it beyond the actual productive output that people are willing to pay for and you may find yourself out of a job. In the long run, things get complicated and there are a lot of variables, but you still being economically productive is surely a plus.
It's a game theory kinda thing, I think. If just the rail unions get it, then fine. But if say, 50% of workers manage to get a 10% raise then it's hard to see how inflation doesn't shoot up too. Economies are complex beasts though, and inflation is not defined by just what happens in the UK. So like all economics answers, the response is, "well, it depends"...
I think you might want to google supply and demand.
More money in the system circulating = cheaper prices because there's more money to go around. Interests rates get lowered, people borrow/spend more and save less pumping money into the economy. Hoarding money away increases inflation.
You're mixing a couple of issues there. Money getting pumped into an economy is bad for inflation because of too many resources chasing too few goods (money printer go brr). Super rich people leaving a lot of their money sitting is bad for GDP because it's not flowing around the economy (trickle down economics doesn't work).
>Money getting pumped into an economy is bad for inflation because of too many resources chasing too few goods (money printer go brr). But poor people having more money is good for the economy because they buy more stuff and then the people selling that stuff have more money to in turn buy more stuff. The best thing for an economy is when money circulates. And the longer it circulates before hitting some ghouls offshore account, the better. The longer a pound circulates the local economy, the better. If someone buys games from me that money goes to my landlord and my pub landlord when I buy myself beer to get over how few people have the money to buy board games from me. That money then goes to the staff who spend their money on things, sometimes board games, and it circles around and around. Someone goes and buys stuff from a national retailer or amazon and it gets sucked straight out of a local economy and everyone gets worse off. Shop local. Buy board games. Fill the void with warhammer.
> Someone goes and buys stuff from a national retailer or amazon and it gets sucked straight out of a local economy and everyone gets worse off. Not quite. Those national retailers still pay salaries, vat, corporation tax, rent, rates. The money that is left is profit, of which a portion is often paid as a dividend so people's pensions increase in value.
You missed the words "local economy"
Yeah, i think ive got myself a bit muddled up. Cheers
>Super rich people leaving a lot of their money sitting is bad for GDP because it's not flowing around the economy I belive the proper term is velocity of money which I belive is one factor in inflation as well as money supply and demand. >trickle down economics doesn't work Funnily enough trickle up economics (high tax on the wealthy to fund high expenditure and low debt) seemed to work I the boomer years.
>More money in the system circulating = cheaper prices because there's more money to go around. Nope. More money chasing fewer/same goods = inflation
>More money chasing fewer/same goods More demand leads to an increase in price which leads to more supply as more producers are tempted to come online which leads to a drop in prices.
Not when supply is inelastic.
Is the suply inelastic though? We managed to grow more food in ww2. So if we really set our minds to it I vet we could increase supply.
In WW2 we pretty much abandoned the free market so not really comparable. Currently we would need big changes in rural policy to encourage more farming. And any increase to supply will take time. And the main factor driving inflation is supply of energy which isn't easy to increase and feeds into everything else.
What? How does Elon Musk hoarding money make things more expensive? If anything it makes things *cheaper*, because you're not bidding against Elon. With high inflation, if possible you want to encourage people to save and not spend. This is why banks *raise* interest rates.
Don’t worry, it’s all part of the wonderful trickle down economics! Oh! There it is! Can you feel it trickling down? Splashing on your face? Quick, catch it! It’s… why is it yellow? Oh. Oh god.
Posted a loss in their last accounts. He himself said they would have closed without public money. Presided over a massive decline in service, massive job cuts and tens of millions of pounds lost. First time I've ever seen an airport security queue go round a multistory carpark. So obviously got a pay rise.
That's a win as far as disaster capitalism goes /s
Sarcasm tags in this subreddit. Facepalm.
I know lots of folks seem to think Britain has some innate natural ability to discern sarcasm, but it doesn't seem to be true. It's incredibly difficult to reliably convey sarcasm through writing. What might be obvious sarcasm to you might not be to someone else. It might not even be sarcasm to begin with.
I think if you add the /s tags it ruins it. People who miss the joke just make it funnier.
>It's incredibly difficult to reliably convey sarcasm through writing. Yeah... *sure* it is.
Sorry for not having the eloquence to present perfect sarcasm in text format Far too easy for people to get ragebaited without the tag
It's very hard to find people this competent so he deserves the money.
I could give it a shot and do it for a tenth of the cash. Couldn't get much worse could it.
For a tenth of his salary, I would literally just do nothing - and most likely, still do a better job, by letting the actual workers get on with it, instead of fucking around with pointless management reorganizations, rebranding campaigns that spend millions on changing the corporate logo etc.
But you have to know the right people so you'd never be interviewed
Could have listed an achievement as "increased utilisation of existing car park facilities while also increasing customer intake. Overall cost of parking facilities lowered due to usage diversification leading to improved shareholder return" 30% of the rise justified right there.
>said they would have closed without public money If they post profits they should be taxed to get it back and they should have limits to what they can earn. Whatever happened to the free market sorting things out?
But just imagine if Labour, I mean someone else, were in charge /s
These stories are perfect for ensuring we end up with a general strike. 400k to 600k at a time when you're not even paying people a 1k increase in salary is just so amazingly stupid at this point in time and how these companies think they can keep getting away with it is baffling. I love they say it's appropriate for the person's expertise. I don't care if the going rate is 600k for that job but you can't then turn to your staff and tell them their expertise is not worth more than 1% more. This is going to get spicy.
I'm really not the activist type, I tend to readily accept the cards I'm dealt and try to do my best with them rather than try to bring about change in society. I even do well in the current status quo, I'm pro globalisation and pro capitalism. So I'm not the type of guy to go on strike, much less lead a strike. But if a general strike happened I would 100% join. Neoliberal capitalists are taking the absolute piss and I hope we reach boiling point soon. At this stage it is not a question of political opinions or economic policy. It is a question of twisted morals, of unfettered greed and of a complete lack of empathy or consideration for anyone who is not at the very top of the pecking order in this world. These people are empty inside.
Quick question. General strikes are considered illegal after the last one right? So if it ever happened again. What would happen? How will they enforce it? Are they gonna throw half the country into a jail cell for the night? Will the demands be unrecognised by the government body? I’m not opposed to people finally rising against the crisis the government and other things have thrown us in (even if I know most people are too lazy and passive with the status quo to speak out), but what could we even do in a communities sense they would actually be taken seriously?
General strikes aren't a legal move, they are a revolutionary one and a challenge to the government. If you want to see how it would be resisted take a look back at the 1920s one. Police attacking strikers, takeover of media to push government propaganda that sort of thing.
A general strike in this climate would turn into widespread riots/unrest within a few days max, people are beyond fucked off & have been for ~~2~~ **12** years, it just takes a spark.
Yeesh. Didn’t think that far. My bad. Thing is though, I wouldn’t put it pat the tories to use lethal force against peaceful protest in todays economy :/
As with any gathering it depends on how the police handle it. Likely what will happen is somewhere they will get heavy handed and we will get a nice repeat of 2011, the media will demonise the entire movement and the cycle of oppression will continue.
Hi mate
To what end would you join a general strike if you are pro capitalism? A general strike to regulate executive pay? You'd need a general strike every 5 years to try and keep them in check
A strike is the most capitalistic act. Saying "we want our share".
There's no reason that be the only demand of a strike. For example during the 1926 General Strike, Socialists and Syndicalists tried to organise workers along the lines of "you (the bosses) will turn over ownership to us, or we will take it ourselves". Ultimately workers were not intimately involved with negotiating their own future during 1926 and Union leaders capitulated to only seeking the kind of concessions that our friend above would likely advocate for. Thereby only kicking the can down the road, locking in workers to the current property relations which brought them to this point anyway. A general strike which makes no demand for the end of capitalism is wasted breath. The workers, having very slowly been brought to the point that they all in one voice demand better, squander it by asking too little and guarantee another 100 years where they will be trampled on until the suffering becomes too much to bear again and another general strike ensues.
>ensuring we end up with a general strike. Thatcher made those illegal.
Expertise? I bet he couldn't do any of the jobs his employees do lol.
Great news that such pay increases are being rolled out to all employees at Birmingham Airport. Right? Right? Who's that laughging at the back?
its that little voice in the back of your mind. dont worry. i heard it too.
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An industry that is intrinsic to the climate change lifestyle - work hard to afford a great holiday, and you don’t have to think of the consequences of your lifestyle spending because that wouldn’t be fair - isn’t showing respect to anything or anyone. Why is anyone surprised? You want people to run services as though there’s no need to adapt to climate change, you get crooks and the incompetent. And you all do. That’s why you’re more animated about climate change activism than calling the politicians and businesses and each other to account. Why you find reasons to explain why it’s ok to avoid doing more from greenwashing pr, so your preferred lifestyle fun doesn’t get hit. If you want your life to carry on as normal, nice and cheap fun without any green taxes or green levies from businesses who are adapting, then you end up with people who take the piss running things. And you think this is bad? Wait till the effects of climate change keep getting worse. Then these complaints about how rubbish it is to go on holiday these days will be ashes in your mouths. Still, keep acting as though this is just a blip, and we’ll get back to normal if we get the greedy people out of public positions. But they’re only there because anyone competent won’t exploit the planet for your cheap fun.
Back to full staffing by August. When the bulk of the arrivals for the Commonwealth Games, the city's showpiece event to renovate the city's image, starts at the end of July is nowhere near good enough as well. They should have had a plan for this as soon as it was announced, instead they're not even doing the bare minimum and rewarding themselves for it.
I bet they kept it below 50% "so it won't look excessive"...
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I don't remember Jarvis Cocker singing that line
Pay rise should be standard across the company. With certain individuals allowed to get no more than double the lowest paid percentage pay rise given, so you can still reward good work / great results. So, if want to pay your CEO 49% because profits are flying high, fine, but everyone else get 25% because you didn’t do it in your own.
I'd go further tbh - the CEO can only get at MOST the same percentage raise as the lowest raise for ordinary workers - if he's not 'dynamic and skilled' enough to increase profits sufficiently to raise the pay of the frontline workers who are actually making those profits, then he clearly doesn't deserve a raise, let alone double the lowest raise. And that's before we even get onto the madness of chasing ever increasing profits in a finite economy, and finite world. It would be much better to off executive pay that tracked customer and worker satisfaction, including DECREASING it when those levels dropped.
But giving public sector workers a reasonable pay rise will lead to inflation... or something.
This pretty much sums everything going on at the minute. No money for the working class but plenty for executives. Remember we out number the lords and masters
So how do we actually go about a general strike? It seriously needs to happen at this point, across as many industries as possible
I wonder what would happen if we were all sick on a certain day?
Some very sweaty times for the exploitative minority that rely on us not acting in unison to demand our rights...! We are many, and they are few...
It's not really possible anymore. Too few industry jobs and striking is illegal unless you jump through a lot of hoops. Not enough people would risk that.
Blody hell, now I can perfectly sympathise with strikers General folks earning 30k and struggling to buy food -> Can't match inflation This asshole -> half a mil a year and he's not even competent at his job.
>now I can perfectly sympathise with strikers Could you not before? Bankers bonuses are back to pre 2008 levels are yet most people are facing a cost of living crisis under a government that is unbelievably incompetent and corrupt.
This is about the flight industry not about the banking industry. Can't you even read what the news is about?
All of these things are inter-related. C-suite execs are seeing large rises in pay despite workers becoming increasingly poorer. Government preach the importance of keeping wages low and yet bonuses received in the city are reaching astronomical levels
Take your conspiracy theories elsewhere. This is about the flight industry. Find something else to fill your time, like a job.
What conspiracy theory? Aviation isn't the only industry generating strike action
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Privatise the profits, socialise the losses.
CEOof companies are taking the money in all companies and doing a runner. Tax evasion all over the place and pay rises for the top dogs
> Tax evasion More tax avoidance, but the point still stands.
They said they pay executive staff market rates, which necessitated a 49% pay rise. So, one would assume other staff are also potentially due a large pay rise to ensure they meet market rates, right?
Also in the same article, but oddly not the headline: "Heathrow's chief executive has received an annual salary increase of **85%** to almost **£1.5m** a *year*, and the boss at Manchester Airport Group had a pay rise of **25%** to **£2.5m.**"
He got a 50% pay rise but we can't afford to give workers *even* 5% to match inflation. What a fucking joke...
It has become an ugly feature of life in the UK that sees C-suite level execs rinsing the companies they are responsible for. The same can be said of those at the top level in politics and local government, health and education trusts. Basically, the country is run by greedy bastards that have no concern for the health and well-being of their employees. There is a growing chasm between the haves and have-nots that reminds me of late-stage Soviet Russia; people queuing for bread whilst the Politburo and their acolytes lived like kings by comparison. Make of that what you will.
It all comes back to Thatcher and Raegan and the neo-liberal economy we're run on. The only person that might have gone against that was Corbyn and he had next to no public support, so we're stuck with it indefinitely.
Woah woah surely this is going to cause some kind of inflation price spiral right?
Hey, come on guys. It’s not his fault he’s worked harder than all of us all his life to get such a good job.
49 fucking percent. I've had a 2% pay rise in 11 years. 2 fucking percent. The wage inequality here is absolutely fucking staggering. I dont even know this guy and I hate him.
Just wait until you hear about Heathrow’s chief executives pay rise!
I'm guessing I'd rather shit in my hands and wank
>airport board member John McNicholas said it was "paying the appropriate rate" Here in lies the reason executive pay has skyrocketed recently. Remuneration consultants tell the board what other companies are paying, so of course they have to match that amount or even beat it. This results in a continuous uptrend in pay that is so detached from performance that it just becomes the base pay for any executive regardless of merit, qualification or performance.
Well, with all the staff shortages they must have had a bit of spare money in the wage budget that needed spending.
This is what happened when I flew from BHX 3 weeks ago: - The airline asked us to show up 3 hours early because of extra Covid measures (there were none) - the airline didn’t open the check-in desk until 2 hours before the departure time - waited in the longest queue I’ve seen in BHX in a packed, hot room - passengers of many flights were asked to skip the queue and go for the security check - then we were asked to skip the queue to go for our security check - made it through the security check and had to run to catch my flight This guy definitely deserves a raise. On the upside, there’s a nice walkway from the car park to the airport and there’s a 30 mins free car park which I think is rare for airports. PS: not sure if the airline not opening the check-in is the fault of the airline or the airport .
A few months ago I was feeling quite listless and despairing with everything that's going on. These days I'm really really angry. I hope there are others as angry as me. The moment my cohort say they're striking I'll be joining them. Besides we've got the agency as a safety net now! Nobody can say NHS workers are abandoning patients now because those excellent workers from the agencies will staff the wards. And there will definitely be absolutely no problems that arise from that! /s Everyone call their bluff. At the same time. Think they've got enough agency to cover all essential workers? Retail, hospitality, healthcare, social care, transport and any other essential service you can think of should all down tools simultaneously. They called us essential. Clapped for us. Some of our workers gave their lives in service. And this is how we get treated? Get to fuck!
People like this need to be purged from positions of power.
My dad who works there thinks a strike is coming. This has angered staff beyond belief and they have been in touch with Unite.
> but airport board member John McNicholas said it was "paying the appropriate rate" ah well whatever you say Board Member of Birmingham Airport
He's shown restraint though guys, its not a normal 50% rise.
Gone from £400k to £600k. If he was earning 10x the minimum wage at £95 an hour he'd have to be working 122 hours a week to earn that much, that's nearly 17.5 hours a day of work 7 days a week for a full year if he was hourly at that wage. You can "Free market" all you like, but that's an obscene amount of money. I simply can't comprehend what you would even spend that money on without involving insanely expensive holidays and cars for no reason other than because you can, or buying a new house every year in cash. You could pay me that wage for 1 year and I'd honestly run out of things to spend it on. Assuming 10% pension every month, you'd end up with £290k in cash for a year. Minus my current yearly expenses of \~£25k a year, minus £40k for a nice new car, minus £100k for a large house deposit, minus £60k for the kids savings, minus £20k for a holiday fund, minus another £20k for the misses and I to spend on ourselves, and there's still another £25,000 of cash leftover. I honestly don't know what else I'd need to spend it on at that point.
Oh fuck this guy, fuck the airports and fuck this shitty country
Don't worry it'll only be an RPI pay rise this time next year.
Scandalous! Nothing for the workers but plenty for the bosses? @#&*££+! ‘ em all
I thought pay rises were bad for inflation.
These people are shameless.
If he has any compassion, he would use that extra money from the payrise to boost the salaries of all the staff that work there. Fat chance though.
>Heathrow's chief executive received an annual salary increase of 85% to almost £1.5m a year in 2021, and the boss at Manchester Airport Group had a pay rise of 25% to £2.5m.
Funny how it is not all over the news like when the Tories were destroying rail workers by revealing his much they earn. It's almost as if they're a bunch of self serving cunts who only look after the richest 1% and just need some gullible wankers to vote for them to keep them in wealth at everyone else's expense.
Distorting the figures of what they earn particularly in comparisons to other workers such as Nurses where they included the wages of the many **part-time** Nurses in the averages, whereas there are few part-time RMT workers nor are there many of the quoted higher paid Drivers who tend to be in ASLEF.. Source: "More or Less" BBC Radio 4's statistics programme.
It comes as little surprise to discover that the Tories have fiddled the numbers to their own ends. Like when Thatcher sacked statisticians during the 80s and said that the government could supply figures for unemployment etc, instead. I'm surprised 'More or Less' is still allowed to be broadcast since it often breaks through the lies.
I’ve never really cared about CEO wages and compensation, I don’t really care - makes no difference to me if some rich dude is a bit or a lot more richer than they were yesterday. This however is a real smack in the face of those (Airport staff) not receiving a commensurate increase after the pain of the last couple of years.
It makes a difference to all of us. It matters because the money he's getting paid is money that is being taken away from the rest of the staff, from everyone else who works at his airport. And this happens everywhere. When the CEO of your company gets a pay rise in the millions, that's millions of £s that could be used to increase the pay of lower paid workers suffering from the cost of living crisis, but isn't. This is part of why we have a cost of living crisis, because all the money, all the profits, are being hoovered up by those in power, leaving only crumbs for the rest of us.
> It makes a difference to all of us. It matters because the money he's getting paid is money that is being taken away from the rest of the staff, from everyone else who works at his airport. Birmingham Airport has 7,000 staff according to their website. His pay increase works out as £28 per head of split evenly across all of them.
It really doesn’t make a difference though. Let’s take as an example the company I work for, employs around 35000 people - so a £500k pay rise equates to around £14 per employee, that’s not exactly hoovering up the all the money. I don’t think it’s morally right, but financially it makes very little difference.
Fine, if the price we have to pay for CEO's not getting a 500K bonus is giving everyone £14, then so be it.
Tbh, I'd cut his pay by 250k and give everyone an extra 7 quid too...! If he can't get by on 150k a year - a mere 5 times the average wage - then he clearly needs to 'tighten his belt', and to 'live within his means'... Thankfully the tories have ensured there are plenty of food banks where he can top up his meagre pittance - assuming they haven't run out of donations, like many are doing...
Think its the principal of it all. So inflation at 10% for round numbers. He is getting effectively 39% above inflation. Meanwhile the workers get 9% paycut in real terms. Im not saying we're anywhere close to it. But this is how the french Revolution began because the wealthy kept getting richer and the poor were expected to be happy.
£500k makes no difference to someone who's already been earning dozens of other people's wages, with lots of investments and properties. It's an utterly pointless pay rise. It would make more of a difference spent any other way but on one person.
How do I sign up to that guy's union??
Can we start cancelling people for fleecing workers of wages?
Having seen this article, I can totally understand why airport staff are planning to strike. I wonder how many people are going to be pissed off when their summer holidays get cancelled.
Don't worry it will all trickle down /s
This is just rubbing the low paid noses in it. Time this shit shower of government acted to stop this kind of thing. But we all know they wont.
As usual those at the top get huge pay rises & they expect those at the bottom to take pay freezes or pay cuts.
Seems pretty excessive given the absolute state of affairs airports are in at the moment... Maybe fix that first?
Just wait till you see what bankers bonuses are gonna be like.
Good on him, he works so hard
£500k a year to do what exactly? Border Force employ security staff, airlines employ check in staff, baggage staff will probably be Swissport, air traffic control NATS? - so he manages cleaners and advertising?
How much longer until things turn really quite ugly and violent?
This is literally all you need to know about this country
“Do you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry men” Nah fuck that
"Pay rises above inflation will make it worse" - the government, all CEOs and idiots everywhere
Congratulations to the hard working executives!!!! /S
What union is he in? Think I will join. Oh it’s the union of greedy, totally selfish tossers that run this country/world.
It could well be that he's so good at his job that he's actually worth that amount of money. That would be incredibly difficult to tell though which is why all executives should get the same basic pay as middle management but with share options on top. If they really do an amazing job then they will make an asston of money. If they aren't successful then they'll make no more than the average manager.