Politics > Politics-USA > Neo-fascistEcstasy: Healthcare disappearing, gas prices skyrocketing, American manufacturing outsourced.
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Black Elk" |
| Date: |
13 Apr 2005 09:17:12 PM |
| Object: |
Neo-fascistEcstasy: Healthcare disappearing, gas prices skyrocketing, American manufacturing outsourced. |
From the article:
U.S. CEOs' pay rose 313 percent from 1990 to 2003, UFE said. By contrast,
the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose 242 percent and corporate profits
gained 128 percent.
During the same period, average worker pay rose 49 percent while inflation
climbed 41 percent.
(I have no idea how the statisticians come up with the increase in workers
pay when energy and healthcare costs have skyrocketed and the availability
of jobs have diminished.)
--------
Published on Tuesday, April 12, 2005 by OneWorld.net
U.S.: Pay Gap Widens Between CEOs and Workers
by Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON -- The chief executives of major U.S. corporations enjoyed
double-digit pay raises last year, adding to a record of ''jaw-dropping''
compensation largely undisturbed by recent years' falling profits and share
prices and a wave of scandals involving management chicanery, the country's
leading labor federation said in a new survey.
Chief executive officers (CEOs) were being enriched at the expense of
working families' retirement savings, the AFL-CIO said in its Executive Pay
Watch study, released Monday as a Web site. The latest annual update aimed
to rally support for labor and other investors who plan to force some 140
companies to confront pay issues at annual shareholders' meetings in coming
months.
''We have seen a tremendous amount of interest among workers in holding CEOs
and their boards accountable,'' said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of
the 13-million-member labor federation. ''They are rightfully outraged when
they learn about jaw-dropping executive compensation packages. It's time to
put the brakes on runaway CEO pay.''
An analysis of securities filings showed that CEO salaries rose 12 percent
in 2004 compared with average raises of 3.6 percent for rank-and-file
workers, further widening the world's largest gaps between executive and
labor pay.
The average CEO of a major corporation received $9.84 million in total
compensation in 2004, the AFL-CIO said.
Business Week magazine arrived at similar numbers last week, when it
released its 55th annual executive pay scorecard. It pegged the average CEO
pay raise at 11.3 percent and described this as ''not far off the rise in
shareholder gains'' last year.
''Increases were moderated in 2004 by the continued impact of corporate
reform, an ongoing shareholder revolt over astronomical pay levels, and
pending accounting changes that are reining in the use of stock options,''
said the magazine's survey of 367 CEO pay packages.
But it also found that CEO raises once again dwarfed those of the average
worker, who saw pay rise 2.9 percent, to $33,176 per year, and concluded:
''Nearly 40 of the nation's chief executives walked away with more than $20
million, excluding windfalls from option exercises. There have been
improvements, but pay for performance is still not the standard practice
everywhere. Some [corporate] boards, at least, are still lavishly rewarding
CEOs who deserve far less.''
With more than $400 billion in assets invested in the capital markets
through pension funds, unions have emerged as increasingly vociferous and
influential investor activists, especially on pay-related issues.
Last year, union-sponsored pension plans won majority shareholder support
for an unprecedented 34 proposals on CEO pay. Although shareholder
resolutions usually are non-binding, those that win majority backing have
been virtually impossible for companies to disregard.
Activists and analysts alike have credited investor pressure as a major
reason why firms have begun to wean themselves off stock options, which give
executives the right to buy shares at a fixed price over a specified period,
essentially gambling that the price will have risen by the time they convert
the options into actual shares. They then keep or sell the shares as they
prefer.
Stock options made up 69 percent of a typical CEO's compensation in 2001 but
last year the figure was down to 31 percent, the AFL-CIO said, citing news
reports.
This year, unions have submitted more than 140 shareholder resolutions
demanding that firms tie CEO pay to corporate performance, limit ''golden
parachute'' severance packages, and seek shareholder approval of
preferential executive pensions.
Executive Pay Watch highlighted six companies it described as emblematic of
the issues confronting firms at this year's annual shareholders' meetings.
The AFL-CIO said it would ask biotechnology firm Amgen to boost the amount
of company stock that executives are required to hold. This, it added, was
because CEO Kevin W. Sharer had cashed in millions of dollars in stock
options in recent years without actually owning any of the biotech firm's
shares outright. Amgen in 2002 began requiring company executives and
directors to own more of its stock but they were given five years to comply.
Unions said they would demand that Sempra Energy clearly state the costs of
issuing stock options when it prepares its income statements. U.S.
accounting rule makers have ordered large companies to do so beginning with
financial statements issued after Jun. 15 and Sempra has said it would
comply.
In addition, they would ask Wal-Mart Stores, the world's largest retail
chain, to switch from stock options to actual shares when compensating top
executives, and to grant shares based on corporate performance.
Other proposals will target CEO pay and severance levels at Coca-Cola,
energy supplier Dynegy, and communications company Sprint.
The United States long has had the industrialized world's largest gap in pay
between chief executives and blue-collar workers. CEO compensation swelled
from 85 times what workers earned in 1990, to 209 times in 1996, and 326
times the following year. In 1999, CEO pay surged to a record 419 times the
average worker's wage, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The gap then declined, to 282-to-1 in 2002, before surpassing 300-to-1 the
following year, according to the research and advocacy group United for a
Fair Economy (UFE).
Comparable figures for other wealthy nations generally do not exceed the
double digits.
U.S. CEOs' pay rose 313 percent from 1990 to 2003, UFE said. By contrast,
the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose 242 percent and corporate profits
gained 128 percent.
During the same period, average worker pay rose 49 percent while inflation
climbed 41 percent.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0412-10.htm
--
"Those seeking profits," Jefferson wrote, "were they given total freedom,
would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights
secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source
of corruption in government. No other depositories of power have ever yet
been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings
of those committed to their charge."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0618-03.htm
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| User: "Bob" |
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| Title: Re: Neo-fascistEcstasy: Healthcare disappearing, gas prices skyrocketing, American manufacturing outsourced. |
14 Apr 2005 07:45:41 AM |
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"Black Elk" <windriver2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1113445038.7c77b1a65392fde169a21e0b8f450944@teranews...
From the article:
U.S. CEOs' pay rose 313 percent from 1990 to 2003, UFE said. By contrast, the
Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose 242 percent and corporate profits
gained 128 percent.
During the same period, average worker pay rose 49 percent while inflation
climbed 41 percent.
(I have no idea how the statisticians come up with the increase in workers pay
when energy and healthcare costs have skyrocketed and the availability of jobs
have diminished.)
Since you seem to see the above as a
problem ... how would you remedy it?
.
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