According to a research released on Monday, top CEOs throughout the globe, including India, saw a real-term salary increase of 9% in 2022, while employees had a global pay decrease of 3% during same time.
The average salary for 150 of India's highest paid CEOs was $1 million last year, a real-term pay increase of 2% from 2021.
A single Indian executive can earn more in four hours than the typical worker does in a whole year.
According to a new Oxfam analysis released on International Workers' Day, employees worked an average of six days “for free” last year because their pay did not keep up with inflation, while top executives' real pay increased by 9% (16% if not adjusted for inflation) in India, the UK, the US, and South Africa.
In comparison to 2022, when salaries had stayed up with inflation, one billion employees across 50 nations lost an average of $685 in real earnings.
The research estimates that every month, women and girls do at least 380 billion hours of unpaid care labour.
Because of the unpaid care duties they must do, women employees sometimes have to work fewer paid hours or leave the industry completely. According to the results, they are still subjected to harassment, gender-based discrimination, and lower compensation for work that is on par with that of men.
“Corporate executives give themselves and their shareholders enormous bonuses while telling us that we should keep wages low. Amitabh Behar, interim executive director of Oxfam International, stated that the majority of people are working harder for less money and are unable to keep up with rising living expenses.
The wealth gap between the wealthy and the rest of society has expanded as a result of years of austerity and assaults on labour unions.
The only increase that employees have seen is in the amount of unpaid caregiving that women are doing, according to Behar. This highly difficult and worthwhile activity is performed at home and in the community for no pay.
In contrast, shareholder dividends reached a record $1.56 trillion in 2022, a 10% real rise over 2021.
“Workers are fed up with being used as sacrificed lambs each time a crisis arises. Everyone except profit-driven firms are to blame for inflation according to neoliberal ideology, Behar stated.
Governments should cease depending only on interest rate increases and austerity measures, which, as we all know, harm regular people, especially those who are poor.
Instead, he suggested that they implement maximum tax rates of at least 75% on very wealthy corporate executives in order to discourage exorbitant CEO compensation, as well as windfall taxes on excessive business profits.
