Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Burger chief's pounds 900,000 pay-off

Colin Brown Chief Political Correspondent
Tuesday 17 October 1995 23:02 BST
Comments

Burger King - the hamburger chain accused of paying staff pounds 1 an hour - last night came under renewed fire from Labour for making a pounds 900,000 pay-off to a senior director in a redundancy package.

Burger King was attacked for feeding boardroom "fat cats" after it was disclosed that David Nash, 55, a senior director of Grand Metropolitan with responsibility for Burger King, is to receive a pounds 790,000 compensation payment, plus an annual bonus of about pounds 100,000.

It will add to the embarrassment faced by John Major over the failure of company boards to heed his calls for restraint.

Labour leaders said it flew in the face of the Greenbury report on voluntary restraint in the boardroom. Ian McCartney, a Labour employment spokesman, accused the company of "massive double standards".

"Only a few weeks ago they were involved in a national scandal for paying peanut wages to their staff. It is now clear that at the same time they were defending this policy they were falling over each other in the boardroom to create the first redundancy millionaire."

Labour MPs last night were planning to table a Commons motion condemning the pay-out. Mr McCartney said some staff were paid by Burger King pounds 117 for a 38-hour week. "It would take someone earning that amount 147 years to earn what this gentleman will get from one minute in the boardroom. Such payments are seen by the public as absolute greed."

Boardroom shake-up, page20

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in