Unite: Give unions a say in bosses' pay

The union made the comments in its submission to economist Will Hutton's review of fair pay in the public sector aimed at tackling pay disparity.

The union has expressed anger over the vast pay disparity between top bosses and low-paid workers struggling on as little as £13,000 a year.

Unite assistant general secretary for public services Gail Cartmail argued that "remuneration committees in the public and private sectors should include trade union representation to provide an employee perspective."

She added: "Unions through national collective pay bargaining have put fairness high up on our bargaining agenda. Yet some employers have snubbed such principles."

The independent review is proposing a pay cap where no public-sector manager can earn over 20 times more than the lowest-paid person in their organisation.

Unite stressed that, while a pay ratio could be a useful audit tool, attention must be given to the lowest paid with the introduction of "appropriate minimum benchmarks."

Brian Strutton of public-sector union GMB, which is yet to make a submission to the review, argued that the 20:1 pay ratio would not be effective in addressing pay inequality.

He highlighted a recent report by the union which studied the published accounts of 151 local authorities and found that 129 chief executives were paid more than £150,000 a year in 2009-10.

Under the proposed 20:1 ratio, if a public-sector worker is on £13,000 per annum, their boss could earn £260,000 a year.

"A cap of 20 times would not be effective and might encourage more of these greedy bosses to increase their own pay even further," Mr Strutton said.

The Hutton review leaves a loophole to allow organisations "flexibility" to breach the maximum cap where "necessary" in competing with rivals.

In the same spirit, the Royal Mail, the BBC and taxpayer-sponsored nationalised banks have been exempted.

Ms Cartmail condemned the exclusion of such organisations, where the issue of high pay differentials appears to be "starkest."