14th June 2003

Spot the Fat Cat

After putting himself in for a massive 30% pay rise in February, amicus Spare General Secretary Roger Lyons is in the embarrassing position of having to condemn bosses' more modest percentage rises. "Our very public campaign to tackle fat cattery has made Amicus a household name. " (Lyons this week in his 'General Secretary's Column'). He was also quoted in the Guardian:

Top directors' pay up 16.1%
Greed rife in boardrooms, says union chief
"Greed is rife in boardrooms. Fat cattery has to be tackled and, since city investors are failing to halt these huge increases, then the government must act."

Funnily enough the Government, in the form of the Trade Union Certification Officer (CO), will be acting in the case of Lyons shortly, the amicus spare General Secretary is trying to stay in office for 10 years without election, this is likely to be ruled illegal by the CO next month.

Has Lyons being performing enough to merit a 30% rise? Judge for yourself, and bear in mind that ever since the merger amicus has had the luxury of two General Secretaries:

In addition to Lyons salary package of £88,971 and use of a Chauffeur which he does not declare as a benefit, Lyons will be spending some of his union-paid-for-time on the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) where he will rake in £261 a day plus expenses. When he sat periodically on the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, in union-paid-for-time, he declined to reimburse the £16,000 salary to the union, no doubt he will also keep the EAT pocket money.

Lyons' embarrassing quotes highlight the inevitable and well documented contradiction between personal greed and trade union leadership. This sort of thing provides ample material to the employers and right-wing newspapers, it hampers members' own pay claims and it brings our union into disrepute. We believe Lyons should go.

Lyons has not been good with money - during the Great Expenses Claim Scandal of 2000, the union's auditors HW Fisher tested to see if he drew sufficient cash from his personal bank account to pay for all of the items for which he subsequently claimed on the union. They found that he consistently claimed more in expenses than the cash that he had withdrawn from his bank account (Certification Officer report). Lyons explained away this one by implicating his family - apparently he was having to borrow cash from them. Who can manage on nearly £90K a year nowadays...

[Guardian] Greed rife in boardrooms, says union chief

Posted by www.rogerlyons.com on 14th June 2003