Scottish Greens co-leader Ross Greer has brought forward plans to reduce the pay differential across Scotland’s universities and colleges.
An amendment to the Scottish Government’s Tertiary Education and Training Bill seeks to ensure the highest-paid employee at an institution could not earn more than 10 times the salary of the lowest-paid worker.
The total remuneration package of University of Edinburgh principal Peter Matheson is now about £420,000. This week staff at his university took strike action over the threat of compulsory redundancies.
City of Glasgow College principal Paul Little is paid around £200,000, higher than the £182,000 salary of the First Minister of Scotland. Dozens of staff at his college have been made redundant in recent years.
Across the UK, the average remuneration for a university Vice Chancellor is £340,000 while 71 College Principals make over £200,000.
The Scottish Greens want to see a 10:1 pay ratio rolled-out across the public and private sectors in Scotland, forcing those at the top to improve the salaries of their lowest paid staff if they wish to increase their own payslips.
Mr Greer said: “This is a simple matter of fairness. Why should university vice chancellors and college principals rake in obscene salaries when so many of the staff who make their institutions great are trapped in spirals of low wages and redundancies? It’s a scandal hiding in plain sight.
“A 10:1 pay ratio between the highest and lowest-paid staff is the bare minimum that we need. It would ensure that bosses can only raise their own salaries by also improving the salaries of their lowest paid staff too. It would lift everyone up rather than let a small number of very well paid people widen the gap between themselves and everyone else.
“Colleges and universities get billions of pounds of public money. We should get the best value for what we put in. That’s why I’m pushing for us to get a grip of high pay at the top of these institutions.
“It’s not just in our colleges and universities that we need to see this kind of change. It’s in workplaces all over Scotland and beyond.
“Linking the salaries of bosses to the lowest paid workers is a simple and important way to reduce inequality and boost the wages of ordinary workers.”
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