#ceo pay

[eaglesnick]

“An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.” Baron de Montesquieu

If anyone really needed proof for whom the British economy is really run they need look no further.

“CEO pay increased to a record high level in 2023."  (Personnel Today: 12/08/24)

While unemployment continues to grow and the cost of living crisis deepens, the median pay for a FTSE CEO's reached a whopping £4.19 million, the highest level of pay ever recorded.

These greedy individuals are now paid 120 times more than the median UK full-time worker. This is financial injustice at its worse.

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre is reported to have made this observation:

“The huge pay gap between executives and the wider UK workforce, said Hildyard, was the result of factors such as the decline of trade union membership, low levels of worker participation in business decision-making and a business culture that puts the interests of investors before workers, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.”  (Personnel Today: 12/08/24)

We all know about shareholder interest being put above all other interests. Just look at the way the water companies are run and financed!

We also know how the courts are used to discourage any criticism of self-serving corporate practices, even when they represent an existential threat to our very existence.

Some peaceful Just Stop Oil protesters were given 5 and 4 year jail sentences, while violent, arsonist rioters who have terrorised UK city centres, are receiving much lesser sentencing. The sentencing in both cases is political in intent and that message is explicit.

Peaceful non-violent protest against big fossil fuel corporations is seen as much more of a threat to the well being of the realm than burning down libraries, attacking the police and terrorising innocent communities.

How wrong can you be?

[thoughtportal]

we're going to wreck their economy, the economy that only works for the billionaire class.

[settlercolonialismisbad]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 22, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Two major stories today seem to bring together both the past and the future of the country to chart a way forward.

The first involves a historic workers’ strike. A week ago, on Friday, September 15, after workers’ four-year contracts expired, the United Auto Workers union declared a limited and targeted work stoppage in which about 13,000 workers walked off the job at three Midwestern auto plants. For the first time in history, those walkouts included all three major automakers: workers left a General Motors plant in Missouri, a Stellantis (which includes Chrysler) plant in Ohio, and a Ford plant in Michigan. 

Workers accepted major concessions in 2007, when it appeared that auto manufacturers would go under. They agreed to accept a two-tier pay system in which workers hired after 2007 would have lower pay and worse benefits than those hired before 2007. But then the industry recovered, and automakers’ profits skyrocketed: Ford, for example, made more than $10 billion in profits in 2022.

Automakers’ chief executive officers’ pay has soared—GM CEO Mary Barra made almost $29 million in 2022—but workers’ wages and benefits have not. Barra, for example, makes 362 times the median GM employee’s paycheck, while autoworkers’ pay has fallen behind inflation by 19%. 

The new UAW president, Shawn Fain, ran on a promise to demand a rollback of the 2007 concessions in this summer’s contract negotiations. He wants a cap on temporary workers, pay increases of more than 40% to match the salary increases of the CEOs, a 32-hour workweek, cost of living adjustments, and an elimination of the tier system. 

But his position is not just about autoworkers; it is about all U.S. workers. “Our fight is not just for ourselves but for every worker who is being undervalued, for every retiree who’s given their all and feels forgotten, and for every future worker who deserves a fair chance at a prosperous life,” Fain said. “[W]e are all fed up of living in a world that values profits over people. We’re all fed up with seeing the rich get richer while the rest of us continue to just scrape by. We’re all fed up with corporate greed. And together, we’re going to fight to change it.”

Fain has withheld an endorsement for President Biden out of concern that the transition to electric vehicles, which are easier to build than gas-powered vehicles, will hurt union jobs, and out of anger that the administration has offered incentives to non-union plants. That criticism created an opening for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to announce he would visit Detroit next week to show autoworkers that he has “always had their back,” in hopes of winning back the support of Rust Belt states.

But for all his talk of being pro-worker, Trump recently attacked Fain, saying “The autoworkers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump.” Autoworkers note that Trump and the justices he put on the Supreme Court have been anti-union, and that he packed the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees labor laws and union elections, with officials who reduced the power of workers to organize. Before he left office, Trump tried to burrow ten anti-labor activists into the Federal Service Impasses Panel, the panel in charge of resolving disputes between unions and federal agencies when they cannot resolve issues in negotiations. 

Fain recently said: “Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers.” 

President Biden prides himself on his pro-union credentials, and as soon as he took office, he fired Trump’s burrowed employees, prompting the head of the union representing 700,000 federal employees to thank Biden for his attempt to “restore basic fairness for federal workers.” He said, “The outgoing panel, appointed by the previous administration and stacked with transparently biased union-busters, was notorious for ignoring the law to gut workplace rights and further an extreme political agenda.”

Today, in the absence of a deal, the UAW expanded the strike to dozens more plants, and in a Facebook live stream, Fain invited “everyone who supports our cause to join us on the picket line from our friends and families all the way up to the president of the United States.” Biden has generally expressed support for the UAW, saying that the automakers should share their record profits with their workers, but Fain rebuffed the president’s offer to send Labor Secretary Julie Su and White House senior advisor Gene Sperling to help with negotiations. 

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and John Fetterman (D-PA) have both visited Michigan to meet with UAW workers, but it was nonetheless a surprise when the White House announced that the president will travel on Tuesday to Michigan, where he will, as he posted on X, “join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create. It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs."

If President Biden is showing his support for the strong unions of the past, Vice President Kamala Harris is in charge of the future. The White House today announced the establishment of a National Office of Gun Violence Prevention, to be overseen by the vice president. 

Lately, Harris has been taking the lead in embracing change and appealing to younger voters. On September 9 she hosted a celebration honoring the 50th anniversary of hip hop, and she is currently in the midst of a tour of college campuses to urge young people to vote. She has been the administration’s leading voice on issues of reproductive rights and equality before the law, issues at the top of concerns of young Americans. Now adding gun safety to that list, she is picking up yet another issue crucially important to young people. 

When 26-year-old Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL) introduced the president today, he said that he got involved in politics because he "didn't want to get shot in school."

If the president and the vice president today seemed to represent the past and the future to carry the country forward, the present was also in the news today, and that story was about corruption and the parties’ different approaches to it.

ProPublica has published yet another piece about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s connections to wealthy donors. Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski reported that Thomas attended at least two donor summits hosted by the Koch family, acting as a fundraising draw for the Koch network, but did not disclose the flights he accepted, which should have been considered gifts, or the hospitality associated with the trips. His appearances were coordinated with the help of Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, who has been behind the court’s rightward swing.

The Koch family network funds a wide range of right-wing political causes. It has had interests in a number of cases before the Supreme Court during Thomas’s term, including an upcoming challenge to the government’s ability to regulate businesses—a principle the Koch enterprises oppose. 

Republicans have been defending Thomas’s behavior since these stories began to surface. 

Also in the corruption file today is Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who, along with his wife, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on three counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion in connection with using his influence to advance the interests of Egypt. 

This is Menendez’s second legal go-round: in 2015 he was indicted on unrelated charges of bribery, trading political help for expensive plane flights and luxury vacations. Ten of the twelve members of the jury did not agree with the other two that he was guilty and after the hung jury meant a mistrial, the Department of Justice declined to retry the case. 

That the DOJ has indicted Menendez again on new charges undercuts Republicans’ insistence that the department has been weaponized to operate against them alone. And while Menendez insists he will fight the charges, he has lost his position at the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under the rules of the Democratic Conference, and New Jersey Democratic leaders have already called on him to resign.

“So a Democratic Senator is indicted on serious charges, and no Democrats attacking the Justice Department, no Democrats attacking the prosecutors, no Democrats calling for an investigation of the prosecution, and no Democrats calling to defund the Justice Department,” wrote former Republican representative from Illinois and now anti-Trump activist Joe Walsh. 

“Weird, huh?”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[comicactivism]

Ceo Pay

https://www.comicactivism.com/fair-wages-fair-prices/ceo-pay

[progressive-politico]

CEOs were paid 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021. Their pay is growing faster than the stock market, typical workers’ pay, and even the top 0.1% of wage earners. This isn’t normal.

[suzilight]

FORCED Overtime on DAYS OFF ???  

UPS CEO Carol B. Tomé

2022 salary about $1.5 Million / Total Comp with stock $19 Million  2021 Total Compensation $27.6 Million UPS said Tome’s compensation was lower because she didn’t exceed performance targets by as much in 2022 as she did in 2021.

Board member with UPS since 2003. Tomé accepted the CEO job at the start of the pandemic, March 2020.  1995 - 2019 The Home Depot CFO & EVP Member of World Economic Forum, Verizon Board Member & diverse board memberships  Carol has been recognized twice by Forbes as one of “The World’s Most Powerful Women.” Tomé’s pay was 364 times higher than $52,144 median pay for UPS workers

UPS 2022 Revenue $100 Billion (a company record high but Carol didn’t hit her performance targets?) UPS 2022 Operating Profit $13.9 Billion 

Carol’s commencement address at Berry College: "I'm blessed to lead a company like UPS, but the truth, is the past two years have been really hard for our team. UPSers are essential workers. During the pandemic, they didn't work from home - they got up every day and sorted and delivered packages with volumes that reached unprecedented levels. I believe I was called to lead this company to inspire our workers ... to support them in their efforts ... to celebrate them. I lead to inspire our people. They are why I get out of bed in the morning."

Celebrate them?  UPS workers had to threaten a strike to get a cost of living increase and A/C so they don’t heat stroke in 120F.  UPS drivers in Texas and California died from heat.  UPS saves only $185 dollars up front by removing A/C from vehicles.   

[ennovance]

CEO Pay Rose to Another Record Last Year. Shareholders Did Even Better. 

https://www.barrons.com/articles/ceo-worker-pay-broadcom-disney-microsoft-stock-performance-6db7d02c

Amgen CEO nabs pay raise thanks to Horizon deal. Does that incentivize aggressive M&A?

https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/ma-boosts-pipeline-progress-holds-back-amgen-ceos-2023-pay

https://x.com/mohossain/status/1780252588455141766?s=46&t=GtuOmoaTjOwevz2JidiiDQ

Loss-making Warner Bros Discovery's CEO pay rises to $50 mln in 2023 https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/warner-bros-ceo-pay-rose-nearly-27-2023-2024-04-19/

https://x.com/mohossain/status/1449566359671738372?s=46&t=GtuOmoaTjOwevz2JidiiDQ

Boeing awards outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun

a 45% pay rise. $32.8mn package comes as the manufacturer tries to contain a crisis of confidence in its quality

https://www.ft.com/content/870be064-5bd3-4595-951c-0c289ac9088b via @ft

https://x.com/mohossain/status/1211312753312485383?s=46&t=GtuOmoaTjOwevz2JidiiDQ

Equilar 100: CEO Pay at the Largest Companies by Revenue

https://www.equilar.com/reports/109-table-highest-paid-ceos-2024-equilar-100.html

Are CEOs rewarded for luck?

https://www.london.edu/think/are-ceos-rewarded-for-luck via @LBS

https://x.com/mohossain/status/783418344040955904?s=46&t=GtuOmoaTjOwevz2JidiiDQ

[suzilight]

August 2023 Union wins A/C for UPS drivers !! They had to petition and threaten strike.

Meanwhile, UPS CEO Carol Tomé is celebrated in 2023 for“Four Pillars” of leadership – Quality, Responsibility, Vision, and Integrity.

What UPS Doesn't Want You To Know

[cazort]

I agree and I also want to clarify since I own a business, there is nothing wrong with being a CEO and running a business of any size. And yes, running a bigger business is harder and it makes sense to compensate someone more if they do a harder job.

But if you look at the way the world currently works, the top-paid CEO's aren't paid to run businesses. Just look at how their pay doesn't correlate in any way with performance: they get huge bonus packages even when their company's profits tank. They get huge severance packages when they get fired.

Their obscene compensation is nothing other than corruption: there is an entrenched culture of a parasite class where you have retired executives populating the boards of most mega corporations, getting paid fat salaries themselves, when all they do is rubber stamp the approval of the insane compensation packages, bonuses, and severance pay.

If you want to change this, there are many different angles we can do this from:

More progressive taxation and closing of tax loopholes so that people with obscene compensation get less of that money and instead it funds government so everyday people can pay less tax.

Shareholders of corporations voting no on approval of boards of directors and executive compensation packages, and advancing their own people to put on the boards of corporations.

Changing the culture of how you talk about this stuff. It makes an especially big difference if you frame your concerns using moderate language or even the language of conservatives. Everyone expects leftists to dislike high CEO pay, but when we start hearing concerns from people elsewhere on the political spectrum, that's where we start building a consensus for a cultural shift.

Share news items drawing attention to extreme and unreasonable CEO pay. Talk about ratio of highest to lowest paid employee. Severance packages. Board compensation packages. Executives getting bonuses even when companies have huge losses or fail or go bankrupt. Let the facts speak for themselves. You don't need to manufacture outrage, the stuff is so appalling that calmly presenting the facts is gonna get any reasonable person riled up.

"but ceos create jobs-"

SHUT UP!!! SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! Y'know what would create jobs?

If people could buy houses that they had the ability to renovate, unlike rental properties that often stay the same, they could hire carpenters & contractors & interior designers to carry out those renovations!

If everyday people could afford to have their clothes adjusted so that they fit them better, and thus last longer, then there would be an abundance of jobs for seamstresses & tailors! better yet, if people could afford to have stuff custom made in the first place rather than relying on fast fashion!

If cities put the effort into public transport then there would be more jobs for bus drivers & train conductors etc.

Or better yet, maybe the issue isn't creating jobs, but rather not forcing people to work their lives away when the world is made for so much more than that

[seraph-bile]

This is such a funny thing for a “news” site that makes you pay for articles to post

[thegurlwhoisntthere]

I’ve seen a lot of posts about the Waynes being the dc equivalent of the Kardashians, and while I can see that, I think it’s very important to remember the reason we all know so much about the kardashians is because they have a reality tv show about them that’s been running for, like, ten years, or something.

I feel like with the lack of a reality show, most of America and maybe beyond would know Brucie Wayne and that he has a lot of kids. Maybe some people would call them the Gotham Version of the Kardashians, but maybe most people wouldn’t know a lot about the kids (names, faces, how many of them there are, etc.) because other than maybe Dick and Tim, I don’t see any of them doing something that anyone outside of Gotham would care to report on (they don’t leave Gotham publicly often and people outside Gotham don’t want to think about what goes on in that hellhole).

Inside of Gotham, however, is an entirely different story. Inside Gotham, everyone can name the Waynes and point them out on sight, even Steph gets recognized sometimes, though less than the officially adopted kids. Inside Gotham, there’s an article for literally everything they do, even if some of them try so incredibly hard to be private people (and they kinda succeed, but Gotham thinks they don’t). Every paper in Gotham has some mention of them, even if it’s just a name drop, because they are just so involved in the city and there are just so many of them. Most people have seen a Wayne in person, if not personally interacted with them. Unlike other cities with their rich people, Gotham loves them. They defend their rich people and they Gatekeep the hell out of them.

Thank you for coming to my dc talk

[izzyspussy]

the fact that they made it illegal to make ads louder than programs on tv in 2010 but haven't updated it to apply the same regulation to streaming. who do i have to call.

[scottguy]

CEOs are rewarded by stockholders with higher pay for being ruthless, underpaying workers and skimping on quality or safety to boost profits. When quarterly earnings keep going up the CEO gets yet another raise.

It's greed rewarding greed.

Corporate greed.

[r0semultiverse]

Y’all are aware we probably have to keep it in the top 10 overall into at least the 19th right? One business day after initial intended marketed advertised release supposedly. Then we should be good unless Mark says otherwise.