Banking boss gets 50% pay rise

This 2012 video from Britain is about the big bonuses at the Royal Bank of Scotland, paid by the taxpayers after bailout.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV:

ING Bank raises CEO Ralph Hamers‘ salary by more than half this year to over 3 million euros.

ING used to be part of the governmental postal service. Then, inspired by Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, right-wing politicians decided to privatise it. Privatisation supposedly improves everything. Did privatising ING improve things for customers? No. Forms, envelopes, etc. which used to be free for customers now have to be paid. Interest on ING customers’ savings accounts has gone down dramatically. But for the likes of Ralph Hamers, privatisation certainly is an improvement.

A few years ago, the privatised ING had to be bailed out; over 10 billion taxpayers’ money.

Board of Directors president Jeroen van der Veer

Van der Veer used to be the big boss of Shell oil, and vice-chairman of the NATO committee about future military strategy.

confirms that in Het Financieele Dagblad daily.

According to ING’s directors, Hamers gets far too little compared to colleagues of European corporations of comparable size. With that difference, the directors have been struggling for some time, says Van der Veer. …

Van der Veer does not want to say whether Hamers himself asked for the wage increase. He hopes the ING’s other staff, who will receive a 1.7 percent salary increase in September, will understand.

1.7% rise is probably not enough to keep up with inflation, so it is in fact a pay cut. Probably, Van der Veer will justify that because at banks in other countries rank and file workers get exploited and oppressed as well; while fat cats’ wages and bonuses get more sky-high all the time.

Trade unions call Hamers’ pay rise ‘absurd’: here. So do some politicians.