The Unite Union shouts the odds at Holyrood on max pay, are their senior executives prepared to set an example and live on national average wage?

Dear All

Stupidity is a poor substitute for intelligence is one of the phrases that I used to use when teaching.

Here is one such example; Union leaders in Scotland are calling for a national maximum wage.

This will never happen.

What is even more bizarre is that the trade union Unite is urging the Scottish Government to back the proposals.

Officials from trade union Unite will be appearing to submit this idea before Holyrood's economy committee into the future of the banking sector in Scotland.

Quite simply this will encourage business not relocate in Scotland or transfer their headquarters out of Scotland to England.

Putting a cap on maximum pay will not help those at the bottom of the pay ladder.

A submission by the union states that "excessive pay levels" of senior executives fuelled the huge inequality in pay across the UK in both the public and private sectors.

The average UK wage about £30,680, if you live in a gerrymandered ghetto such as Pollok then you would be lucky to take home even half that.

Rather than engaging in the politics of envy, why aren’t they campaigning for meaningful change in why people in social housing slums on average earn below the national average consistently?

It is time that the Unions stop playing the politics of the student union and face up to the real concerns of their members and help to achieve better pay and conditions for them rather than worrying about a tiny minority.

Why don’t Unite senior executives set an example and introduce the average UK wage of £30,680 for themselves?

Why don’t they take a pay cut?

I suspect that the senior members of the Unite union would go very quite about that as a proposal.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University