At a time of impending ecological disaster, growing divisions in society and a crisis in public health, many reasons have been invoked in favour of fair income and allowances, to build back resilience in society so that we can cope with these problems better.

Fair income and allowances could help to overcome inequalities across our economies and societies. In a system of inequality where companies or individuals are pushing for profit, there is more incentive to ignore environmental boundaries, to extract more in order to get richer. When working together and focusing on the needs of the community, there is more incentive to create and respect environmental boundaries around shared resources.

The impact of Covid has exposed the damaging effects of inequality, shown most dramatically by the gap between the lowest and highest earners, and has brought the ongoing debate about Universal Basic Services (healthcare, education, public transportation, housing, electricity, etc.) and Universal Basic Income (UBI) back on the table.

Some of these proposals offer opportunities to reduce the growing polarisation we are witnessing across societies nowadays e.g UBI can unite politicians from the right (ie. more freedom for individuals to choose how to earn their income, including starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur) and the left (redistribution of wealth, end of poverty and inequality). Setting an income ceiling built on a maximum-minimum ratio is a major shift from the current culture of high executive pay. With proposals for one off taxes on the wealthy becoming more common, there is opportunity to unite people around the idea that a longer term income ceiling can benefit society as a whole, making us more resilient in times of crisis.

In particular, unpaid workers in the ‘informal economy’, usually women, who make a huge contribution to the value of economies (estimated at 9% of global GDP) and fill many gaps in existing services, should be considered and recognised. To begin accounting for this, unpaid work needs to be included in any measure of a country’s success (see “beyond GDP).

See some more detailed arguments below.

Universal Basic Income

• • Helps us rethink how and why we work and contribute to shorter working hours and a better distribution of jobs. For the past three decades the demand for labour, and wages as a share of GDP, has both been declining. Meanwhile, people are living longer and retiring later, and part-time work, insecure casual contracts, and self-employment are increasingly the norm for the precariously underemployed. Benefits also include: increased job opportunities for those currently excluded, the option to reduce working hours or retrain, and the opportunity to find more meaningful work whether paid or voluntary.

  • Contributes to better working conditions, as workers will find it easier to challenge their employers on unfair or degrading work conditions.

  • Fair redistribution of work lost to automation and through any transition/ change. Much investment in technology is socially funded through taxes. With automation estimated to displace about one third of the current jobs worldwide in the next ten years alone, a basic income could provide a cushion and allow retraining. The change from an infrastructure based on fossil fuels to one based on renewable energy also involves major changes for workers.

  • Downsizes bureaucracy, because it is one of the simplest tax / benefits models, make it less complex and costly, while being fairer and more accessible.

  • Helps reduce inequalities and increase equity. It rewards unpaid contributions, creates gender equality, sharing out the wealth produced by a society to all people and reduces the growing inequalities across the world (note: assuming a fair, redistributive tax system - see points below on tackling power). People currently excluded from benefit allowances will have their rights guaranteed and the huge number of unpaid activities, many of them by women, would be recognized as economic contributions that society relies on.

  • Strengthens our capacity for active participation in democracy (and community) With a minimum level of security guaranteed to all citizens and less time in work or worrying about work, innovation in political, social, economic and technological terms would be encouraged.

  • Contributes to wellbeing and end extreme financial poverty. Basic income programs can ensure that no one lives in a state of absolute poverty. Studies have shown that direct cash payments improve the financial and mental well-being of their recipients, though economists still dispute exactly which types are most effective and efficient.

  • helps implement a post-growth monetary system. Currently, access to digital money and payments is entirely dependent on the solvency of the commercial banking system. To build a post-growth monetary system we need new ways of guaranteeing access to a means of payment that does not depend on the solvency of commercial banks and their issuance of interest-bearing debt.

Proponents also emphasise fundamental values and cultural reasons such as:

Dignity and the human right to material existence - the basic human right without which all other rights are impossible.

The concept of work and progress. We need to question employment as the central organising institution of society and human progress.

Putting value on unpaid work

Lack of infrastructure creates more unpaid work. Women in rural and developing countries spend a considerable amount of time collecting water. A study which looked at countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia found that when access to water increased as a result of infrastructure investment women didn't enter into more paid employment, but their overall time spent on unpaid labor did diminish and enrolment in school improved in countries with big gender gaps. Collection of firewood for fuel is another labour intensive task.

Effect on women: a disproportionate amount of unpaid and informal work is done by women, the time spent on this prevents them from taking opportunities for training and education and participating in formal, paid labour which is protected by labour, wage, health, and safety regulations. It thus can affect their health and well–being.

Effect on children: statistics show that many children, particularly in poorer countries and households, are forced to contribute to the unpaid domestic work of a household. The burden of unpaid domestic work falls particularly on young girls who are forced to drop out of school.

Effects of unpaid domestic work on the economy: The economic value of women's unpaid labour, such as caring, cooking and cleaning, which was estimated in 2010 as 26 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) is not included in GDP or national income accounting indicators.

Effects of unpaid domestic work on the state: Unpaid domestic work has a positive effect on a state's budget by decreasing the amount of money a state must spend to otherwise provide these services. Cuts to healthcare, education and income disadvantage women in the long-term and push them further into poverty and therefore more reliant on the state.

Universal Basic Services

There have been calls to recognise public services as ‘social infrastructure’, no less essential than highways, the national grid and other aspects of the ‘material infrastructure’, which should be treated likewise as an investment that will yield social and economic dividends. The value that public services create goes beyond economic benefits alone and is routinely underestimated. The ways in which universal services are designed and delivered – and how they interact with each other - are likely to influence the extent to which they benefit the poorest, as well as other income groups and society as a whole.

Equity: services such as education, healthcare, access to transport, have a strong redistributive effect, they bring intrinsic value to everyone but are worth much more to people on low incomes than the better off and can reduce income inequality by an average of 20%. The effects are not just individual as reducing inequality benefits society as a whole.

Efficiency: despite being accused of inefficiencies, public sector organisations can keep costs down in ways that cannot be achieved by competing commercial organisations. Crucially, a non-profit system does not need to extract funds to pay dividends to shareholders. Public services can interact in mutually beneficial ways, from healthy eating at schools benefiting health outcomes and saving costs, to indirect effects such as reducing social isolation, or creating social value that takes years to accumulate with no obvious economic benefit for a private provider.

Solidarity: Services are a manifestation of shared interest and purpose; they can help to bring people together, build social cohesion and reduce inequalities.

Sustainability: Services can produce benefits that are continuous and cumulative; they can prevent illness, provide opportunities and can be organised in ways that can facilitate carbon reduction, anticipate climate hazards and achieve longer-term environmental sustainability.

Income ceiling built on a maximum-minimum ratio

A ceiling on wages based on a ratio between the highest paid people and workers at the bottom doesn’t set a hard cap on earnings but controls the difference between the two. High wages were effectively controlled by taxes on higher earners after the 2^nd world war, with wealth redistributed. However, over the years top wages have increased dramatically while tax rates have dropped (in the US this has happened since Reagan’s tax reforms in the 1980s, while rates for lower wages have stayed the same).

Exposes the trickle down myth: An income ceiling tests one of the central claims of the growth economy: that the profits and wealth of the elites trickle down to benefit everyone. In fact, the Reagan tax reforms in the US reduced overall economic output while only the rich became better off. For companies, there is a negligible connection between executive top pay and return on investment capital; less than 1%.

Reduces inequality: wage inequality is the basis for real inequality and justifies the idea that for some, our basic needs are a luxury, where money equals human value.

Values essential workers: minimum wage workers do the hardest and most derided jobs, yet without them companies, countries and the whole society wouldn’t function.

Discourages greed and excessive focus on money: with no ceiling or low taxes on high earners, executives compete to take home the biggest paycheck, but where the top wages are capped (either by high taxes or an income ceiling) executives compete to run the most effective and best company, with non-monetary factors becoming more important.

Work with allies to promote Fair Income and Allowances

As the promotion of Fair Income and Allowances is not a typical Greenpeace campaign and we have little expertise or campaign history, it will be key to collaborate with allies. Support from Greenpeace could add value to their work and bring their voices to the mainstream. Mapping these allies will form part of the third phase of this project.

Put a spotlight on excessive executive pay

Expose extractive industries where company executives are awarded high salaries and /or shareholder benefits. Highlight the environmental cost that is the basis of this financial reward and the amount of government subsidy received by the company for their activities, compared to the amounts earned by their lowest paid workers - creating a narrative that people and the planet are paying for fat cats. Use this narrative to call for:

• • An income ceiling and /or an additional tax for businesses in which the highest-paid managerial employee earns more than 100 or xx times the median compensation of employees.

  • Look for opportunities where Greenpeace could collaborate with allies by drawing attention to opportunities to expose inequalities in wages, such as Fat Cat Wednesday, the first day of the year when top bosses’ earnings have already surpassed the annual salary of the average.

Use this moment of disruption to:

SHIFT MINDSET
FROM: A scarcity mindset
TO: An abundance mindset

FROM: We all exist on a ladder and compete with each other to survive.
TO: Everybody is equal and wealth should be shared. We depend on each other and the community to survive.

FROM: The lazy abuse social safety nets.
TO: Directly or by extension, we all benefit from a strong social safety net.

FROM: Guaranteed income system removes the incentive to work.
TO: The security of a universal basic income allows for training and development, creativity, and contribution to community projects (civic participation).

FROM: A strong social safety net is expensive.
TO: A strong social safety net provides benefits that are continuous and cumulative and cheaper in the long term. For example it reduces crime and its costs to society.

SHIFT POWER

1. The individual jobs that people do and the amount that they are paid can be closely linked to their sense of identity. In some cases jobs are superficial and lack meaning or connection to the community or society, for example, telesales, marketing and advertising to promote overconsumption, or are directly harmful, such as working for companies involved in extractivism. Giving greater value to work by ensuring that it is beneficial to the community and that respects the natural environment, will shift power away from individual wealth and the need for social status, by building agency and allowing people to identify more strongly with the benefits of their work, rather than the material wealth and status associated with their jobs.

2. The Western system encourages individuals and families to be self-reliant; a shift to a more cooperative and sharing system where services and products can be shared could result in less waste and better use of resources. Instead of individual ownership of products, a change of focus from the individual to the community through sharing resources promotes cooperation, reduces competition and counters the differences in social status that people connect with their personal material goods.

3. Highly paid jobs reinforce selfishness and individualism and contribute to the concentration of wealth in a small group of people, creating an unbridgeable gap between the highest and lowest earners and divisions in society. Pushing for such differences to become morally unacceptable can encourage organisations and individuals to create more balance in the way that people are paid.

4. There is a trend to promote private companies to manage public services, to supposedly make them more efficient and keep costs down; unfortunately, the extraction of profits for executives and shareholders usually means very poor public services and greater expense for the taxpayer. A change towards greater involvement of public stakeholders - the people using the services, the taxpayer, together with workers - and away from private gain, is key to redistributing power and ensuring that public services are not managed by profit making companies.

SPARK STRUCTURAL CHANGE/ CREATE ENVIRONMENTAL BOUNDARIES
Some of the proposals aligned with our values and mission are:

Universal Basic Income

• • Reform of social security policies and benefits systems to adopt basic income programmes that ensure that no one lives in a state of absolute poverty.

  • Provide training and retraining opportunities for meaningful work, particularly for economic activities that improve wellbeing and the balance with nature, such as in sustainable agriculture, renewable energies, setting up cooperative organisations and community organising based on local civic participation.

Putting value on unpaid work

• • Reform of the tax system and social security policies to eliminate the concept of the sole breadwinner in a two-adult family. Provide maternity, paternity, and childcare leave for both women and men and subsidised, quality, affordable child and elder care services. Improve public services that have direct and indirect consequences on unpaid work and strengthen information campaigns on unpaid work.

  • Family-friendly workplace policies: shortened work weeks, flexible paid leave and the ability to work from home are possible solutions that would facilitate the redistribution of unpaid labour within households. Financial support for companies, such as tax rebates, to encourage them to provide this.

  • Reform the workplace to achieve better work-life balance through flexible working.

  • Investment into public infrastructure. Public funds should be channeled to investment projects that create better access to essential resources that lessen the burden of unpaid labour, particularly in developing countries, such as the delivery of clean water and energy from renewable sources.

Universal Basic Services

• • Certain essential services, depending on the country, should be free or very cheap and be accessible and affordable for all, according to need and not ability to pay, with clear rules and procedures for eligibility and entitlement.

  • Collective responsibility for meeting shared needs, exercised through democratically elected governments and public investment, with devolution of power to the lowest appropriate level (see civic participation). A key role for the state in distributing funds, setting standards and ensuring equal access.

  • Public services to be run by public sector organisations and not private companies, based on diverse models of ownership and control, with collaboration and partnerships within and between service areas. Meaningful participation by people who use services, alongside service workers, in decisions about design and delivery.

Fairer income and allowances have made a significant improvement in the lives of some of the poorest people in the Global South, which has led to less depletion of local ecosystems and dependence on extractive industries for survival. Free services such as education and healthcare, public investment in infrastructure, and democratic participation in local community decisions have created sustainable food systems, renewable energy infrastructure, access to clean drinking water and enabled new local businesses that increase the value of sustainably sourced materials. Reducing the difference between the wealthy and the poorest has resulted in less focus on money as a marker of success, with non-economic benefits taking priority, and less tangible benefits such as restoring dignity, self determination and self respect. Work itself becomes more meaningful, no longer based on irrelevant, vanity projects, but linked to the wellbeing of society and the planet.

Case studies:

Universal Basic Income

Everywhere basic income has been tried, in one map (US, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Kenya, Brazil, Iran, Namibia, India, China, Japan)

• • UBI in Brazil: In Brazil, a coalition of over 160 organisations campaigned for the introduction of an emergency basic income during the Covid pandemic. Winning the support of over half a million people and recruiting key social media influencers, the campaign was a remarkable and rapid success. Within 10 days of the campaign’s launch, a law approving the scheme was approved; a further 10 days later, people were receiving their first payments. Tens of millions of Brazilians received vital support as a result, and over half of Brazil’s population was estimated to have directly or indirectly benefited from the scheme.

  • Kenya and Uganda: This project is perhaps the first true universal basic income in recorded history, where about 6,000 desperately poor people in Kenya and Uganda are provided with a guaranteed flow of cash for the next 10 years or more, distributed through cellphone-based payment systems popular in East Africa. Although it's at an early stage, its already reporting results: “recipients ate more and experienced less hunger, invested in expensive but worthwhile assets like iron roofs and farm animals, and reported higher psychological well-being. They were less hungry, richer, and all-around happier.”

Putting value on unpaid work

• • Argentina saw the launch of a new partnership spearheaded by civil society, working with women leaders in business and other spheres, committed to challenging the gender gap in employment. The Agenda for Equality is supported by 1,500 leaders, of various genders, from all over the country and from a variety of sectors including academia, civil society, unions and companies of all kinds, from multinationals to SMEs and cooperatives. The objectives of the Agenda are to first promote the hiring of women in formal jobs in the private sector and to encourage better participation of women in traditionally masculine sectors; second, to redistribute unpaid care work; and third, to challenge stereotypes and promote and make visible the participation of women in public discussion and decision-making.

  • We care (Oxfam project) Here are a few case studies from around the world but they require a login. More interesting case studies (starting at page 22)

Universal Basic Services

Healthcare and education are basic services that are free in many Western countries, for example in the EU and the UK, where the case is being made to extend this to housing, transport, care and access to digital information. An example of free for all, fare-free public transport is in Luxembourg.

In comparison, access to free health care and education in Global South countries is much more variable, with some good examples (eg. Colombia for health care) as well as many significant gaps.

Putting cap on earnings

• • San Francisco: San Francisco voters overwhelmingly backed a new law that will levy an extra 0.1% tax on companies that pay their chief executive more than 100-times the median of their workforce.

  • Germany: Companies in Germany with over 2000 employees are required to have a supervisory board, half of which are required to be workers of said company, under the Mitbestimmungsgesetz, enforcing codetermination. The supervisory board sets the executive wages of the company.

  • Spain: In 2013, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, the official Spanish opposition party, adopted a ratio as part of their official policy.The Mondragon Corporation, a worker-owned cooperative headquartered in the Basque Country, has an internal wage ratio at an average of 5:1, periodically decided with a democratic vote.

  • Switzerland: Popular Initiative "1:12 Initiative - For fair wages" was a Swiss referendum held on November 24, 2013 in an attempt to create legislation limiting the amount of executive pay to a maximum of 12 times that of the lowest paid workers. The referendum was rejected by 65.3%, with a turnout of 53%, and no canton took on the initiative. The largest rejection came from the canton of Zug, accepted by only 23% of the votes, and the least rejection came from Ticino, where it was supported by 49%.

  • United States: In 2010 President Barack Obama signed into effect the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In short, Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act changed the regulation regarding CEO compensation disclosure to shareholders. In December 2016, the city of Portland, Oregon voted to implement a surcharge for chief executives who earn more than 100 times the median pay of their workers in 2017.