BOSSES’ earnings must be linked to the pay of their workforce in order to discourage “eye-watering” bonuses being dished out to CEOs, MPs have said.

A report published today by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee staunchly criticised the pay inequality that exists in large employers such as Royal Mail and Unilever.

In 2017 Unilever chief executive Paul Polman pocketed a 51 per cent wage rise and now earns £10.3 million a year.

Similarly, Royal Mail bosses suggested a 156 per cent wage rise for themselves last year, leading to a successful shareholders’ revolt against this manoeuvre.

The report said that manoeuvres such as these generate cynicism among workers and the public, and urged companies to solve this by developing stronger links between executive and employee pay.

It also urged the Financial Reporting Council to act more robustly in clamping down on “excessive” pay rises.

The committee’s chair Rachel Reeves said: “Eye-watering and unjustified CEO pay packages are corrosive of trust in business and threaten to undermine the public’s support for the way our economy operates.

“When the company does well, it is workers and not just the chief executive who should share the profits.”

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner told the Star: “With wage inequality and exploitative work practices a common feature for many, we need tough action to rein in fat-cat pay and introduce fairness and transparency into Britain’s workplaces.

“If Britain’s boardrooms want workers to help make them profits, it is high time they paid them fairly and started acting responsibly.

“If they won’t, then the government’s duty is to force them to do so.”