Wages
In 2009, UK City minister Lord Myners proposed that the pay and identity of up to 20 of the highest-paid employees at British companies should be disclosed. In the UK, employees outside the boardroom are currently granted anonymity about their pay deals. He also called for the pay of all employees to be banded in grades. In his interim report in July, David Walker suggested that bankers' pay levels should be disclosed in bands and that the number of staff falling in each band be included. However, it is unlikely in the UK that disclosure requirements will be made a legal requirement, with hopes being placed on recommendations being undertaken voluntarily.
Regulations in Hong Kong require banks to list their top earners – without naming them – by pay band.
In Norway, tax authorities annually release the "skatteliste" or "tax list"; official records showing the annual income and overall wealth of nearly every taxpayer.
In 2009, the Spanish government for the first time released information on how much each cabinet member is worth, but data on ordinary citizens is still private.
Read more about this topic: Transparency (behavior)
Famous quotes containing the word wages:
“The more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“I hear ... foreigners, who would boycott an employer if he hired a colored workman, complain of wrong and oppression, of low wages and long hours, clamoring for eight-hour systems ... ah, come with me, I feel like saying, I can show you workingmen’s wrong and workingmen’s toil which, could it speak, would send up a wail that might be heard from the Potomac to the Rio Grande; and should it unite and act, would shake this country from Carolina to California.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“Three factors—the belief that child care is female work, the failure of ex-husbands to support their children, and higher male wages at work—have taken the economic rug from under that half of married women who divorce.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)