2023-05-01 06:10:10
How is the wealth shared within the 100 largest French companies listed on the stock exchange? That’s what tried to find out
l’association Oxfam France, which publishes from this Thursday the results of its study, carried out with the analysis office Le Basic. The first part looks at the pay gap between CEOs and “average salary” within these companies, “between 2011 and 2021“. A second part will be made public in the coming weeks and “will focus on the weight of payments to shareholders”.
The association’s main observation is as follows: in a period when “big companies regularly announce record profits”, the wealth producedcontinue to be unequally distributed even within them”. She thus denounces the “abyssal” pay gaps between CEOs and employees.
A clear statement
Between 2011 and 2021, i.e. in the space of ten years, “the average pay gap between the CEO and the average salary” in the 100 largest listed French companies “went from 64 to 97”. Which means that today, the CEO of one of these companies generally earns 97 times the average salary of its employees compared to 64 times ten years ago. Oxfam also indicates that during these ten years, “the 100 largest French companies have increased the remuneration of their CEO by 66%, and only by 21% that of their employees”. It is specified that during this same period, the minimum wage, “increased by only 14%.”
But that’s not all. In the distribution of wealth within the 100 large companies studied, the share allocated to wages “went from 61% to 51%, a decrease of 10 points.” “This trend is also valid for the CAC 40, with a labor share that has fallen from 58% to 48% of their added value.” This decrease”should alert us” warns Léa Guérin, advocacy officer on the issue of the regulation of multinationals at Oxfam. “It is done to the detriment of low wages particularly impacted by inflation, which we have suffered for months. Léa Guérin adds : “a check for an additional 10,000 euros: this is what each CAC 40 employee should have received on average last year if we had continued to redistribute the wealth created in the same way as 12 years ago”
Three companies stand out (negatively)
In its report Oxfam France establishes a ranking of the three companies where the salary gap is the largest between the CEO and his employees. Here, in order, is the podium:
- Teleperformance (world leader in call centers): Daniel Julien, its CEO, “earns 1484 times more than the average employee of the company”
- Stellar (automotive manufacturer which owns Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat…): Carlos Tavares, the CEO, earns 1139 times more than the average employee. It is also specified that with “his 66 million euros salary”, he won “in 2021, in 3h22 the equivalent of the average annual salary of his company”
- Dassault Systems (software publisher, specializing in 3D design): Bernard Charlès, the CEO, “earns 385 times more than its average employee”
Léa Guérin, of Oxfam France, believes that “the fabulous remuneration of these CEOs has become completely above ground and does not correspond to a hypothetical market price as one can sometimes hear”. She also adds that “certain indecent remuneration is no longer justified and must be regulated.”
Gender inequalities persist
Gender inequalities are also highlighted in the Oxfam France report. It shows in particular that the women managers of the companies studied are less well paid” than the rulers. Thus, “they earn on average 36% less than men.” The example of Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, is once once more given, since with “his more than 66 million annual compensation”, the latter won in 2021 “more than all the women leaders of large companies put together.”
Women leaders who earn less but who are also few according to Oxfam. The association indicates that within the “large SBF120 companies”, women are “Widely underrepresented: less than 11% of leaders are women.”
Oxfam France’s recommendations
In view of the various findings established by the association in its report, Oxfam France makes a number of recommendations:
- Revalue work by promoting wage increases, starting with low wages
- Limit pay gaps by imposing a pay gap of 1 to 20 between CEO pay and the median salary
- Accelerate efforts to reduce the wage gap between women and men by reforming the index for professional equality and introducing equal conditions in subsidies, authorizations and public contracts
- Review the design of executive compensation by removing stock market compensation criteria and giving preference to extra-financial compensation criteria, in particular social and climatic, by setting them at a minimum of 50%. Go further by making variable compensation conditional on the achievement of certain social and environmental objectives
- Reform the outdated governance of large French companies by strengthening employee representation on Boards of Directors or Supervisory Boards, taking into account the geographical diversity of the group’s workforce while reviewing the proportion of employee representatives present on Boards of Directors
- Condition the remuneration of the CEO and directors of the Boards of Directors and Supervisory Boards to climate and socio-economic objectives
- Use taxation as a tool for social justice in the redistribution of wealth in business by removing the flat tax while realigning capital taxation on labor taxation
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