Union leaders today stepped up their campaign to have workers on company remuneration committees, saying the move would help tackle the widening pay gap between top directors and other staff.
The TUC said employee representatives would break the "closed shop" among bosses when top pay is being set, and offer a "healthy dose" of economic reality when earnings and bonuses were being discussed.
Their call came as Labour leader Ed Miliband upped the ante on Sunday night in the debate about RBS chief executive Stephen Hester's bonus this year saying he should not get one. Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg dismissed reports that Hester was in line for an award of £1.5m or more as "pure speculation".
Today the TUC said action was needed to tackle pay inequality after pointing out that the ratio of executive pay to average employee earnings had more than doubled from 47:1 in 2000 to 102:1 last year.
Pay inequality will get worse unless something is done, the TUC warned, arguing that excessive rewards were "damaging" for business.
Suggestions that shareholders should be given greater powers would not make any difference, while worker representation on committees was already widespread in other European countries, said the TUC.
General secretary Brendan Barber said: "The three main political parties are at long last catching up with the TUC's call to take action to curb excessive pay in the boardroom.
"With ordinary workers suffering the sharpest fall in living standards in a generation it's completely unacceptable for those at the top to continue awarding themselves huge and unjustified pay rewards that bear little correlation to performance.
"Introducing worker representation would bring a much-needed dose of economic reality to company pay decisions.
"It already operates successfully across much of Europe and it's about time the UK caught up.
"We've had years of tough rhetoric from politicians on excessive pay and still no decisive action. Introducing worker representation on remuneration committees into the UK would be an excellent start."