Chuka Umunna Quotes
While we are clear that it is right that those who work hard, generate wealth and create jobs for our country are rewarded, where failure is rewarded or people award themselves huge pay rises that bear no relation to performance or what their companies can bear, trust is severely undermined.
Umunna, Chuka. "Labour calls for employee representation on pay committees." The Guardian, Guardian News & Media, 10 Jan. 2012.
Corporate CEO pay had traditionally been 5-15 times the average wage for the company. But it had changed to where in banks and financial companies the CEO pay was often 100-1000 times the average salary. This became a major political issue after the 2008 Meltdown. During the Great Recession some CEOs who had led the company to huge losses and then had to take government money to bail them out and prevent bankruptcy, took multimillion dollar salaries and huge bonuses while average salaries had gone down. There was a move for government to regulate CEO salaries. Macke argued for the position that would finally be taken.
In the Meltdown of 2008, the federal government, in order to prevent a major depression, bailed out the banks and the wealthy bankers whose speculations and greed has caused the investments of other people’s money. There was almost no Federal help for the average middle and lower class American who had not caused the meltdown but had been damaged by it. When the bankers took the bailout money and paid themselves and others huge bonuses, even though the companies had lost billions of dollars under their stewardship. Many people were outraged and raised all kinds of public protests that they were being paid bonuses with taxpayer money. The bankers and conservative politicians accused the protesters of being un-American because they were complaining about other Americans success. The President explained the situation.
That has been the average perception well into the 21st century.
High level financial industry executives were earnings millions of dollars even if the company did poorly. In many cases annual bonuses were paid even after the firm lost money and in some cases after the firm had to be sold to stave off bankruptcy. The worst thing in 2009 and 2010 was when some of the banks paid million dollar and more bonuses while the company was getting bailout money from the taxpayers to prevent their bankruptcy.
Chuka Harrison Umunna is a British former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham from 2010 until 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, he was part of the Shadow Cabinet from 2011 to 2015. He left Labour in February 2019, when he resigned to form The Independent Group, later Change UK, along with six other MPs. Later in 2019, he left Change UK and, after a short time as an independent MP, joined the Liberal Democrats. In the 2019 general election, he was unsuccessful in being re-elected as an MP and did not return to the House of Commons.
