GMB launches new campaign and slams chiefs' pay to boost state ownership case

Trade union GMB last week linked water company executive salaries to re-nationalisation of the industry when it simultaneously published research on the former and a campaign to secure the latter.

The pay investigation, jointly undertaken with Corporate Watch, put the average English water company chief executive salary at £1.25m in 2017, which it pointed out was six times higher than that of the prime minister. Collectively the total CEO pay bill for the nine private firms was £11.3m in 2017; over the past five years, £58m in salary, bonuses, pensions and other benefits.

The figures were released last Tuesday at the GMB’s 101st Congress in Brighton as the union launched it’s “Take Back The Tap” campaign to bring England’s privatised water industry back into public ownership.

Tim Roache, GMB general secretary, said: “It is a national scandal over the last five years England’s hard-pressed water customers have been forced to splash out £58 million through their bills to go into the pockets of just nine individuals. Privatisation of the water industry has been a costly mistake and these eye-watering sums are further proof the water industry must be returned to public hands.”