Mike makes the case that the CBI’s opposition to Milliband’s suggestion that the minimum wage should be set at a percentage of the average wages comes from the fact that the massively inflated salaries of their own directors would therefore come into the equation, thus pushing the wages up further. This would not be an issue in Japan, where there is a ceiling on how much company bosses can earn compared to the rest of their workforce. What’s good for the highly capitalist, meritocratic Japanese is far too collectivist for the CBI, who, has another of Harry Enfield’s characters would say, just want to be ‘considerably richer than yow’.
Here’s an interesting development: Ed Miliband announced today that a Labour government would link the minimum wage to average earnings, after the Low Pay Commission proved itself woefully inadequate for the job.
Employers’ organisation the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) immediately leapt up to scream that politicians should not set wages, completely missing the point that, under Miliband’s plan, politicians wouldn’t.
CBI chief policy director Katja Hall gave verbal evidence of her inability to understand a simple issue when she told Radio 4’s Today programme: “The system we have at the moment has been really successful and that system involves the setting of the minimum wage by an independent Low Pay Commission… They have done a really good job and we think it’s much better the job is left to them rather than given to politicians.”
… Really?
The Miliband plan would not give the job to politicians. It…
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