Performance pay please

Excessive salaries in the public sector in a time of austerity, are they justifiable, what is the worth of a man?

Starting at the top with our president, a supporter of socialist policies who surely at some time in his life read Karl Marx, a man who toiled with the age-old problem of the value of a man’s labour — our president earns around €680 a day. So what value can you put on the labours of a human being, be they physical or intellectual? Is the labour of any one person worth, say, several hundred euro per hour while another is forced to survive on less than the minimum wage.

Could the answer be if you work in, and for, the private sector then your labour is worth all you can get for it, which will be dictated by what an employer is willing to pay for it ie free market economy with all its uncertainties, its market-driven forces and performance-related rewards, and where contracts are terminated when goals or targets are not met. So, why in this time of austerity do we not adopt these tried, trusted and successful principles to the CEOs of our public sector?