Bradford supermarket group Morrisons pays among the lowest average wages of the UK's leading 100 companies, a new survey has shown.

The hugely successful company, which this year completed a £3 billion takeover of rival Safeway, was named third from bottom in a league table of FTSE 100 firms in terms of how well they pay.

Only pub chain Mitchells & Butlers and catering empire Compass Group - owner of the Harry Ramsden's fish and chip restaurant group - paid a lower average.

The survey revealed the average wage at Morrisons was £9,556 a year, suggesting many of its employees are paid the minimum wage of £4.70 an hour.

Rentokil Initial, which has three divisions based in Bradford, fared little better with an average salary of £10,429. And Morrisons' big rivals Tesco and Marks & Spencer also figured in the bottom ten.

The figures contrast massively with the FTSE 100's best-paying firms, headed by hedge fund manager Man Group, which pays an average £104,563. The average UK salary was £24,600 a year.

A spokesman for the Transport and General Workers Union, which is involved in a dispute with Morrisons over collective bargaining and binding arbitration at the firm's two major distribution centres in Wakefield and Cheshire, said the study showed more must be done to tackle low wages.

A spokesman for the union said: "These figures show that business is failing to regulate itself. "The gap between the richest and the poorest is growing and companies are still getting away with poverty wages. We think the Government needs to legislate." A Morrisons spokesman said: "We believe that our rates of pay are competitive and, coupled with our range of other benefits which include profit share, make Morrisons an employer of choice in the retail sector."

The average pay packet of a UK chief executive ballooned to £1.7 million last year, according to the study.

Directors' pay climbed 12.8 per cent in 2003, more than three times faster than the 3.6 per cent rise in average earnings over the period excluding City bonuses.

GMB union general secretary Kevin Curran said: "While working people try to make ends meet on wages far below the national average and are told repeatedly that their pay must be trimmed, the fat cats of business are keeping every possible trimming for themselves."