Re your article on Labour’s pay cap proposals (Why now and would it work?, 11 January), can I suggest an approach in line with today’s reality TV obsession? If a company boss or government department head decides that he, or she, is worth 20/50/500 times the average company or departmental wage, then the high earner should be given the opportunity to meet 20/50/500 of the said employees (for some businesses, such as City finance, it might be best for them to meet truly average earners such as nurses or teachers or refuse disposers), and then, after brief summaries of the participants’ working lives, the high earner would be invited to explain why he or she is worth 20/50/500 of the audience members. Questions could then follow from the audience. Anyone refusing to participate shouldn’t be paid more than, say, 15 times the average wage. The process would be repeated every year. It should make for edifying viewing.
David Robson
Otley, West Yorkshire
• Instead of trying to enforce a top pay cap or a lower high/low pay ratio, high pay should be linked to quality contracts for all employees and the protection of the company pension fund. This would mean no zero-hours contracts, no false self-employment contracts, a limited number of agency contracts of short-term fixed periods with automatic transfer to full contracts, and a good ratio of pension contribution. All these should be enforced if the top salaries are above 45:1 ratio. A balanced gender and ethnic minority ratio should also be included as a factor, and the company’s pay policies should be applied to all part-time employees and contracted-out services. Higher scrutiny of companies with no top pay limits is essential to make sure benefits accrue to all employees.
Marion Hine
Framlingham, Suffolk
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