Oxfam says directors’ salaries rose 9% but baselines fell 3.19%

In 2022, the highest paid chief executive officers (CEOs) received a 9% increase in their salaries, while male and female workers saw paycheck values ​​fall by an average of 3.19%. In a report released today (30), Oxfam (Oxford Committee for the Relief of Hunger) also highlights that, in Brazil, the drop in earnings was greater, 6.9%, and that, at the other end, shareholders of companies had an increase of 23.8% (US$ 27.3 billion), so that they accumulated US$ 33.8 billion.

In the case of Sweden, the balance has tipped even more towards the privileged. There, the reduction of the remuneration of the working class was of 10%. The United States and the United Kingdom were equal, with a percentage of 3.2%, but they have differences regarding the richest. In the case of the USA, the top 100 CEOs earned US$ 24 million, on average, last year, an amount 15% higher than that recorded in 2021. In the island group, the amount was US$ 5 million, leaving 4.4 % above the achieved in the previous year.

Such figures, for the sake of comparison, show that a worker in the United States would have to remain active for 413 years to achieve what the CEO at the top of the chain earns in a year. With regard to the United Kingdom, what is noted is that company presidents earn the equivalent of 140 times the value of the average salary of employees.

Reference data

The non-governmental organization adopted data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) as a reference to make the calculations. One of the findings, which encourage thinking in the context of social inequalities, is the average cut of US$ 685 in the account of one billion workers in 50 countries, which would end up meaning a collective loss of US$ 746 billion in real wages, if wages had been readjusted for inflation.

In South Africa, the ostentation of CEOs was not as much, but the disparity between what they and the base workers pocketed is also expressive. Executives increased their salaries by 13%, totaling US$ 800,000, on average, at the end of 2022, which corresponded to 43 times the average salary of workers.

Another piece of data that helps to understand the socioeconomic dynamics of the African country concerns the securities and shares of companies. The richest 1% hold 95% of the shares, a proportion that drops to 54% in the United States.

Other information in the report concerns dividends paid to shareholders, which reached a record level, after a 10% increase. The total was US$ 1.56 trillion, as mentioned in the Oxfam document, which also compiled information on the status of women at the bottom of the labor market.

The conclusion is that the monthly workload of women and girls has at least 380 billion hours of unpaid care activities, which proves that certain gender stereotypes, such as the role of taking responsibility, in a central way, for the creation of their children, still weigh on them. Often, points out Oxfam, workers end up shortening their working hours or even leaving their jobs because of these activities. In addition, they also face discrimination, harassment and receive lower wages than men.

women’s wages

An example that illustrates how the labor market treats female workers is the United States. Half of the black women there are paid less than $15 an hour in exchange for their labor.

The coordinator of Social and Economic Justice at Oxfam, Jefferson Nascimento, complements the entity’s statements with data related to the subject, released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in March this year. According to the organ, female workers in the country receive a salary 22% lower than male workers.

“Until the pandemic, until 2020, there was a tendency to reduce the difference in pay between men and women, which was reversed. There are several factors behind this. Most unemployment is women, the highest rate of informal workers is among women. We know that informal work pays, on average, less than formalized work. So, somehow, the precariousness of work, these instruments that encourage it, such as the labor reform of 2017, created the conditions for there was this increase in difference”, says Jefferson.

One of the directions pointed out by Oxfam as a solution to the problems listed in the report is to tax the richest portion in all countries properly and proportionately. The NGO recalls, for example, that taxes on income from dividends and shares fell from 61% in 1980 to 42% today, a relevant fact for the discussion, since it is from the collection of these charges that one can increase public funds in areas such as health and education.

dividends

The coordinator of Oxfam observes that, in Brazil, shareholders received, in 2022, around US$ 34 billion, which is almost a third of what all emerging countries distributed in dividends in the period. And it also comes close to the value referring to what workers in the country had in salary cuts.

For Jefferson, this profit margin delivered to shareholders should be one of the parts that make up the discussion around the tax reform, in view of the possibility of a counterpart to society that can be opened. He explains that, in Brazil, the obligation does not apply to individuals and points out that the measure already has the approval of a large portion of the population.

“It is a theme that is connected with this debate that is taking place in Brazil, at this moment, in the scope of tax reform. We are debating in the National Congress, focusing, mainly now, on the consumption tax. But, in a second moment, and this has been said in Congress, if you intend to work with the reform of the tax on assets and assets, and it is essential to also talk about the return of taxation on profits and dividends”, he says.