Pendle Labour Party Blog

At Barrowford Labour Party’s January meeting, Mark Porter, a local trade union and party activist, led a robust discussion on the current Banker’s Pay dispute.
He said that, while difficult economic times meant uncertainty for millions of people, there was one constant that could be relied upon: the Banker’s Bonus. The meeting noted that despite the Tory manifesto promises to curb executive excesses, the latest round of banker’s bonuses just kept coming. Last week’s announcement that the chief executive of the bailed out bank RBS was due to receive a massive bonus on top of a salary of £1.2 million annual salary beggared belief.
The meeting was told that David Cameron had said he didn’t think it was right that employees should have a seat on company remuneration committees, but he did think it appropriate that shareholders be given rights to block such payments agreed by those committees. The government, which is the major shareholder in RBS and which should be demonstrating its serious intent to to tackle endemic executive high-pay, should therefore be blocking such enormous bonuses.
But the government did absolutely nothing. The chairman of RBS quickly announced that he would not take up all of his option of a £1.4 million bonus. But  it was not until several days later amid mounting pressure, most notably a motion tabled by the Labour opposition, as well as growing anger from the public that the CEO, Mr Hester, finally announced that he would not take up the bonus.
The meeting felt that if the government is unwilling to instigate regulatory reforms, despite widespread acceptance that they are needed to ensure the country’s financial stability, then surely they have lost the right to govern us!