‘Over recent years, CEO pay in public companies has increased at a stratospheric rate, while the real incomes of many private sector workers have either stagnated or fallen. Consequently, the issue of CEO/worker pay equity has become a politically live issue, both in the UK and internationally. Against this background, the seminar will explore the economic case for moderating intra-firm pay disparities. It will highlight the importance of manifestly fair organisational pay policies in sustaining the significant levels of trust and personal commitment that are necessary for the maintenance of productive employment relations. It will also demonstrate the broader function of pay equity in sustaining the corporate sector’s collective and publicly delegated license to determine prevailing private sector income distributions, outside of direct state control. Finally, the seminar will contend with the orthodox counter-argument that reduced income inequality is liable to undermine incentives for productive work practices, by showing that – contrary to popular belief – a decreased emphasis on pecuniary incentives will likely be conducive to greater levels of work effort on the part of both senior executives and ‘rank-and-file’ workers. On this basis, the claim will be advanced that achieving meaningful pay equity is important today not just as a means of achieving social justice, but also as an essential precondition for securing the continuing existence of private enterprise in its traditionally understood form.’
Date: 12th February 2014, 6.00pm
Location: UCL Faculty of Laws, Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG
Charge: Free, registration required
More information can be found here.
