rant: Corporate America

[uhsir]

What’s wrong with this picture?

Quote:
In 2005, the average CEO in the United States earned 262 times the pay of the average worker, the second-highest level of this ratio in the 40 years for which there are data. In 2005, a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than an average worker earned in 52 weeks.

For the complete article go here: <http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20060621>

This is just plain wrong!

I work in Corporate America and this analysis does not exaggerate. Every year I get my company’s Annual Report that discloses the income for all of the biggies. It’s obscene.

Maybe they deserve it because they have a lot of responsibilities, travel all over creation, are on-call all day and night. I’m supposing. I really don’t know what life as a CEO is like.

So why, then, was it necessary to cut back (spelled L-A-Y-O-F-F) so many production workers in order to manage expenses. Huh?!

The AFL-CIO has a cute little website that’s keeping an eye on the CEOs. Take a look: <http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/>

There’s a link for comparing your wage against the CEO if you work for one of the companies in the database. Mine’s there and the comparison is pretty sickening. Here’s what it says.

Quote:
How You Compare to Your CEO
Your CEO’s compensation could support 359 workers earning your salary.
You would have to work 359 years to equal your CEO's 2004 compensation.
You'd better get working, because you can't take a vacation until 2365 A.D.

Oh, so that’s why I’m so tired!

 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry Uhsir, I just have to disagree with your rant. :)

When an average worker can step into a CEO's shoes and do the job that an average CEO does, then they deserve the salary that goes along with the job.

It helps to remember that something does not have value because of the labor it took to produce it, it has value based on the relative scarceness and demand for it. The ability required of a CEO is scarce and therefore worth more.

Another way of illustrating this is to consider the salaries of tv stars. Richard Dean Anderson has made a fortune because of his shows. But you don't complain about the gross inequity of pay between him and the caterer - why is that? The answer is because the caterer can't do what RDA does. How good was SG1 without RDA in it? Was he easy to replace? Would it have been the same show if he had never been in it? Would the show have even gotten off the ground if he had not been the star? Well, it's the same with CEO's. They can make or break a company. Not everyone has their talent or their vision. If we did, a lot more of us would be CEO's. :)

Jaffagirl

[uhsir.livejournal.com]

Hi Jaffagirl! Don't apologize for disagreeing with me. I love a good debate. I learn so much from them.

I don't dispute the qualifications of a CEO. I did clarify my ignorance of that in my post, at least I thought I did.

What I have a problem with is a situation that has become a yearly event at my company. Maybe my company is unique? Every year there are shutdowns and "workforce reductions" because there isn't enough revenue coming in from it. Any revenue generating business affected gets shuffled off to some other division. No matter that these other divisions already have overbearing workloads from earlier reductions and shutdowns. At the same time, the upper-ups in management, every year, get "bonuses" of several hundred thousand dollars. Divisional bonuses are zero because of continual quarterly net losses.

There just seems to be something really wrong with corporate math.