CEOs Who Fire Workers Get 42 percent more Pay than Most Others
In 2009, CEOs of the fifty corporations responsible for the biggest layoffs were paid an average $12 million—42 percent more than the average pay for the Standard & Poor’s 500
By Kevin Stoda, candidate for USA Senator everywhere
There is certainly a lot of horrible news on how America’s fairly poor business administration practices of the past decades ARE STILL continuing to drive American business, schools, economy and life in general. When will American labor and teachers wake-up and stick it to bad business models in school and national development—including political economic development.
First, many leading teachers, like Chicago’s Karen Lewis, have only recently noted how America’s recent penchant to once-again love blindly corporate America will continue to lead to horrible lives and lifestyles in America (and elsewhere) this decade.
KAREN LEWIS stated on Democracy Now Friday, “ Well, the problem is that the whole idea of the [American] business model doesn’t work in education. In the business model, you can select how you want to do something. You have an opportunity to innovate in a way that discriminates. It’s very easy to do. Whereas in a public school system, where we do not select our children—we take whoever comes to the door—what we need is actually more resources and more support for the people that are there and the work that’s being done. However, again, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein—I don’t know about Joel Klein—none of these people are superintendents. You have to have, again, credentials for that. These are business folks. Look, the business model took this country to the brink of Armageddon in 2008. And yet, we want to follow a failed business model and imprint that on top of public education? No. And these things are not innovative. What they are is they’re terrorism. They’re ‘my way or the highway.’ And they’re still not producing, quote-unquote, ‘results.’
Nobody disagrees with accountability. That’s not the issue. The issue is, what do you use? We still know that high-stakes testing basically tell us more about a student’s socioeconomic status than it does anything else. And until we’re honest about that and want to deal with the fact that we have neighborhoods in our cities and across the nation that have been under-resourced, have been devalued for decades, and for some reason or other, the schools are supposed to fix all that and change that.”
Why weren’t good universities, business schools, and teachers stating this in the classroom decades ago? Could they all have been brainwashed by the Chicago School of Economics?
Meanwhile, in another interview on Democracy Now on Friday, the lead author of a report, entitled "Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession" stated “the CEOs of the fifty corporations responsible for the biggest layoffs were paid an average $12 million—42 percent more than the average pay for the Standard & Poor’s 500” in 2009.
Come on, America, there ought to be laws to stop this stupidity in a depression!
It is time that American media begins to report (like good labor unions instead of as Wall Street love children) and get this and other stories out and circulating properly in schools and homes..
KURZARBEIT AND SEATS ON BOARD ARE NEEDED IN AMERICA
Sarah Anderson is Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies. Anderson also noted in her interview with Juan Gonzalez last week that Americans and businessmen& employees need to “look for some ideas at European countries, where they have policies that discourage layoffs by requiring higher severance payments and other things to really promote preserving jobs. They also have a system called—well, in German it’s called Kurzarbeit, but it’s where the government can help pay for part of a worker’s salary with reduced hours, just to be able to keep them on payroll through tough times. And I think there are some experiments with that in some of the US states, as well. Overall, the European countries have tried to avoid the kind of real devastating effects that we’ve seen in the US and, of course, have stronger social protection and unemployment insurance programs there, as well. So we can learn from other countries. In Europe, also, in about a dozen countries, they require big companies to have representatives of workers on their boards. We think that could really help with the executive pay problems, as well.
Please, America, listen to go stories and circulate them in your emails—instead of all the junk and propaganda that is out their by BIG BUSINESS AND LOBBY INTERESTS against your best interests.
Note; See whole story from DN here.
Study: CEOs Who Fired Most Workers Earned Highest Pay
A new study shows the CEOs who fired the most workers during the economic recession have also taken home the highest pay. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the CEOs of the fifty corporations responsible for the worst layoffs were paid an average $12 million—42 percent more than the average for the Standard & Poor’s 500.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/study_ceos_who_fired_most_workers
JUAN GONZALEZ: Two years into the recession, there’s one small group of Americans who are not feeling the bite of the economic downturn: CEOs. Chief executive pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s. It more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-twentieth century.
And a new study from the Institute of Policy Studies shows that CEOs who fired the most workers during the recession took home the highest pay. According to that study, the CEOs of the fifty corporations responsible for the biggest layoffs were paid an average $12 million—42 percent more than the average pay for the Standard & Poor’s 500. The study covered the period from November 2008 to April of this year. For 72 percent of companies, mass layoffs were announced during periods of profit and high CEO salaries.
For more on this story, I’m joined now from Washington, DC, by the lead author of the report, titled "Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession." Sarah Anderson is Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
SARAH ANDERSON: Great to be here, Juan. Thanks.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Sarah, lay out what you found.
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah. Well, we thought, obviously, since we’re in the middle of such a terrible jobs crisis, that it would be a good idea to look at the companies that have cut the most jobs under this crisis, and then look at how the CEOs at those companies were doing. And I guess it wasn’t any surprise to us to find that the CEOs at these top job-cutting companies weren’t really tightening their own belts. But what was truly outrageous was to find out that they were actually making significantly more than their overpaid peers at other big US companies. And so, to be specific, what we looked at were the fifty companies that have had the most layoffs. All of them have cut more than 3,000 jobs since November 2008. And as you said, on average, they made $12 million last year, which was 42 percent more than S&P 500 CEOs as a whole.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What are some of those companies, and name the executives and their pay?
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah. Well, one that’s very interesting, I think, is Mark Hurd at Hewlett-Packard, because he’s been all over the headlines lately because he got fired a couple of weeks ago. He was fired because he tried to conceal a relationship with a female contractor who also happened to be a former erotic film star and a reality TV star. And, you know, I find stories like this as titillating as the next person, but I was amazed to see that these stories all ignored the fact that this is a guy who has laid off more than 30,000 workers at Hewlett-Packard over the last few years, while earning more than $20 million a year. Now, to me, that is the real scandal at Hewlett-Packard. But we’re not hearing much about these kinds of stories.
There’s still the impression, I think, the misconception, that when CEOs make these big mass layoffs, that they’re being the good tough guys—they’re making the tough decisions necessary to make their companies mean and lean. And yes, that might boost their profits in the short term by cutting all of those costs, but we want to point out that these kinds of layoffs can have very serious long-term costs for the companies, not just the workers themselves. That’s obvious. But there’s a lot of costs associated with these kinds of mass layoffs in terms of lower worker morale, in terms of costs associated with having to train and rehire workers down the road. And so, we see it as just another example of the kind of short-termism, the short-term thinking of business leaders that got us into this crisis in the first place.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Can you tell us of some other companies? Wasn’t General Motors one of the—
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah, mm-hmm.
JUAN GONZALEZ: —ones that laid off the most workers in the past year?
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah, General Motors, the CEO there didn’t have the highest pay, but it was substantial, I think around $15 million or so. Everybody’s hoping that GM will turn things around and get people working again. And we think that in a severe crisis like GM has gone through, it really would have been the best thing for the CEO of the company to also really tighten his belt. I mean, I’m not going to deny that job cuts are necessary sometimes. In situations where it might mean the survival of a company, you just—you have to make cuts in some certain situations. But then the CEOs themselves should also have to tighten their belts. And we should be looking to lift up examples of CEOs who use creative ways to avoid layoffs, to maintain jobs. There are ways you can work with your workforces to work these things out. And we’re not seeing recognition going to those kinds of CEOs. We’re seeing the recognition going to the ones that are making the big job cuts.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And are there any in particular that you think should be noted for keeping their salaries down and keeping layoffs down?
SARAH ANDERSON: I’m not really aware of examples. We don’t really hear much about them in the media, at least not recently. You can look for some ideas at European countries, where they have policies that discourage layoffs by requiring higher severance payments and other things to really promote preserving jobs. They also have a system called—well, in German it’s called Kurzarbeit, but it’s where the government can help pay for part of a worker’s salary with reduced hours, just to be able to keep them on payroll through tough times. And I think there are some experiments with that in some of the US states, as well. Overall, the European countries have tried to avoid the kind of real devastating effects that we’ve seen in the US and, of course, have stronger social protection and unemployment insurance programs there, as well. So we can learn from other countries. In Europe, also, in about a dozen countries, they require big companies to have representatives of workers on their boards. We think that could really help with the executive pay problems, as well.
JUAN GONZALEZ: OK, well, Sarah Anderson, we’ll have to leave it there. The Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies, she’s the lead author the new "Executive Excess” report.
By Kevin Stoda, candidate for USA Senator everywhere
There is certainly a lot of horrible news on how America’s fairly poor business administration practices of the past decades ARE STILL continuing to drive American business, schools, economy and life in general. When will American labor and teachers wake-up and stick it to bad business models in school and national development—including political economic development.
First, many leading teachers, like Chicago’s Karen Lewis, have only recently noted how America’s recent penchant to once-again love blindly corporate America will continue to lead to horrible lives and lifestyles in America (and elsewhere) this decade.
KAREN LEWIS stated on Democracy Now Friday, “ Well, the problem is that the whole idea of the [American] business model doesn’t work in education. In the business model, you can select how you want to do something. You have an opportunity to innovate in a way that discriminates. It’s very easy to do. Whereas in a public school system, where we do not select our children—we take whoever comes to the door—what we need is actually more resources and more support for the people that are there and the work that’s being done. However, again, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein—I don’t know about Joel Klein—none of these people are superintendents. You have to have, again, credentials for that. These are business folks. Look, the business model took this country to the brink of Armageddon in 2008. And yet, we want to follow a failed business model and imprint that on top of public education? No. And these things are not innovative. What they are is they’re terrorism. They’re ‘my way or the highway.’ And they’re still not producing, quote-unquote, ‘results.’
Nobody disagrees with accountability. That’s not the issue. The issue is, what do you use? We still know that high-stakes testing basically tell us more about a student’s socioeconomic status than it does anything else. And until we’re honest about that and want to deal with the fact that we have neighborhoods in our cities and across the nation that have been under-resourced, have been devalued for decades, and for some reason or other, the schools are supposed to fix all that and change that.”
Why weren’t good universities, business schools, and teachers stating this in the classroom decades ago? Could they all have been brainwashed by the Chicago School of Economics?
Meanwhile, in another interview on Democracy Now on Friday, the lead author of a report, entitled "Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession" stated “the CEOs of the fifty corporations responsible for the biggest layoffs were paid an average $12 million—42 percent more than the average pay for the Standard & Poor’s 500” in 2009.
Come on, America, there ought to be laws to stop this stupidity in a depression!
It is time that American media begins to report (like good labor unions instead of as Wall Street love children) and get this and other stories out and circulating properly in schools and homes..
KURZARBEIT AND SEATS ON BOARD ARE NEEDED IN AMERICA
Sarah Anderson is Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies. Anderson also noted in her interview with Juan Gonzalez last week that Americans and businessmen& employees need to “look for some ideas at European countries, where they have policies that discourage layoffs by requiring higher severance payments and other things to really promote preserving jobs. They also have a system called—well, in German it’s called Kurzarbeit, but it’s where the government can help pay for part of a worker’s salary with reduced hours, just to be able to keep them on payroll through tough times. And I think there are some experiments with that in some of the US states, as well. Overall, the European countries have tried to avoid the kind of real devastating effects that we’ve seen in the US and, of course, have stronger social protection and unemployment insurance programs there, as well. So we can learn from other countries. In Europe, also, in about a dozen countries, they require big companies to have representatives of workers on their boards. We think that could really help with the executive pay problems, as well.
Please, America, listen to go stories and circulate them in your emails—instead of all the junk and propaganda that is out their by BIG BUSINESS AND LOBBY INTERESTS against your best interests.
Note; See whole story from DN here.
Study: CEOs Who Fired Most Workers Earned Highest Pay
A new study shows the CEOs who fired the most workers during the economic recession have also taken home the highest pay. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the CEOs of the fifty corporations responsible for the worst layoffs were paid an average $12 million—42 percent more than the average for the Standard & Poor’s 500.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/3/study_ceos_who_fired_most_workers
JUAN GONZALEZ: Two years into the recession, there’s one small group of Americans who are not feeling the bite of the economic downturn: CEOs. Chief executive pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s. It more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-twentieth century.
And a new study from the Institute of Policy Studies shows that CEOs who fired the most workers during the recession took home the highest pay. According to that study, the CEOs of the fifty corporations responsible for the biggest layoffs were paid an average $12 million—42 percent more than the average pay for the Standard & Poor’s 500. The study covered the period from November 2008 to April of this year. For 72 percent of companies, mass layoffs were announced during periods of profit and high CEO salaries.
For more on this story, I’m joined now from Washington, DC, by the lead author of the report, titled "Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession." Sarah Anderson is Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
SARAH ANDERSON: Great to be here, Juan. Thanks.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Sarah, lay out what you found.
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah. Well, we thought, obviously, since we’re in the middle of such a terrible jobs crisis, that it would be a good idea to look at the companies that have cut the most jobs under this crisis, and then look at how the CEOs at those companies were doing. And I guess it wasn’t any surprise to us to find that the CEOs at these top job-cutting companies weren’t really tightening their own belts. But what was truly outrageous was to find out that they were actually making significantly more than their overpaid peers at other big US companies. And so, to be specific, what we looked at were the fifty companies that have had the most layoffs. All of them have cut more than 3,000 jobs since November 2008. And as you said, on average, they made $12 million last year, which was 42 percent more than S&P 500 CEOs as a whole.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What are some of those companies, and name the executives and their pay?
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah. Well, one that’s very interesting, I think, is Mark Hurd at Hewlett-Packard, because he’s been all over the headlines lately because he got fired a couple of weeks ago. He was fired because he tried to conceal a relationship with a female contractor who also happened to be a former erotic film star and a reality TV star. And, you know, I find stories like this as titillating as the next person, but I was amazed to see that these stories all ignored the fact that this is a guy who has laid off more than 30,000 workers at Hewlett-Packard over the last few years, while earning more than $20 million a year. Now, to me, that is the real scandal at Hewlett-Packard. But we’re not hearing much about these kinds of stories.
There’s still the impression, I think, the misconception, that when CEOs make these big mass layoffs, that they’re being the good tough guys—they’re making the tough decisions necessary to make their companies mean and lean. And yes, that might boost their profits in the short term by cutting all of those costs, but we want to point out that these kinds of layoffs can have very serious long-term costs for the companies, not just the workers themselves. That’s obvious. But there’s a lot of costs associated with these kinds of mass layoffs in terms of lower worker morale, in terms of costs associated with having to train and rehire workers down the road. And so, we see it as just another example of the kind of short-termism, the short-term thinking of business leaders that got us into this crisis in the first place.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Can you tell us of some other companies? Wasn’t General Motors one of the—
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah, mm-hmm.
JUAN GONZALEZ: —ones that laid off the most workers in the past year?
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah, General Motors, the CEO there didn’t have the highest pay, but it was substantial, I think around $15 million or so. Everybody’s hoping that GM will turn things around and get people working again. And we think that in a severe crisis like GM has gone through, it really would have been the best thing for the CEO of the company to also really tighten his belt. I mean, I’m not going to deny that job cuts are necessary sometimes. In situations where it might mean the survival of a company, you just—you have to make cuts in some certain situations. But then the CEOs themselves should also have to tighten their belts. And we should be looking to lift up examples of CEOs who use creative ways to avoid layoffs, to maintain jobs. There are ways you can work with your workforces to work these things out. And we’re not seeing recognition going to those kinds of CEOs. We’re seeing the recognition going to the ones that are making the big job cuts.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And are there any in particular that you think should be noted for keeping their salaries down and keeping layoffs down?
SARAH ANDERSON: I’m not really aware of examples. We don’t really hear much about them in the media, at least not recently. You can look for some ideas at European countries, where they have policies that discourage layoffs by requiring higher severance payments and other things to really promote preserving jobs. They also have a system called—well, in German it’s called Kurzarbeit, but it’s where the government can help pay for part of a worker’s salary with reduced hours, just to be able to keep them on payroll through tough times. And I think there are some experiments with that in some of the US states, as well. Overall, the European countries have tried to avoid the kind of real devastating effects that we’ve seen in the US and, of course, have stronger social protection and unemployment insurance programs there, as well. So we can learn from other countries. In Europe, also, in about a dozen countries, they require big companies to have representatives of workers on their boards. We think that could really help with the executive pay problems, as well.
JUAN GONZALEZ: OK, well, Sarah Anderson, we’ll have to leave it there. The Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies, she’s the lead author the new "Executive Excess” report.
Labels: CEOs Who Fire Workers Get 42 percent more Pay than Most Others
posted by Kevin Anthony Stoda at 11:07 AM
2 Comments:
September 6, 2010
Dear Kevin,
First, they voted against the Democrats' economic stimulus plan. Then they voted against expanding health care to working families and cutting Medicare costs for seniors. And against keeping teachers and police on the job. Then they held up unemployment benefits for millions of Americans who had earned them!
Now the Tea Party Republicans have a plan to increase unemployment if they take back control of Congress in November.
How will they do it?
1. Cut federal investment in green jobs, public services, and small business lending
2. Cut taxes for the rich just like George W. Bush did.
3. Unleash Wall Street speculators and big corporations to ship jobs outside the United States.
We have just eight weeks to stop them!
Whether you're unemployed today -- or will be if the Tea Party Republicans take control of Congress -- you can help!
The Tea Party Republicans may have the big money, but we have the people.
Each of us can help by spending even a few hours calling voters or knocking on doors for Democrats who block the Tea Party Republican plans.
21st Century Democrats endorses candidates who share our vision of party and country, one that puts ordinary people first. To learn about our candidates, click here.
You can help stand up Democrats all over the country, even if they are not in your community. You can make phone calls at no cost or make a small contribution. To contribute, click here.
Will you work with us to protect jobs?
All you need to do is click here. And we'll connect you with campaigns for stand up Democrats who need your help.
Everyone can help. It doesn't matter if you're retired, unemployed, or still working. And share this invitation with friends and relatives, young people who haven't been able to find a job yet, retired people who are experienced volunteers and friends who ask "What can I do to stop the Tea Party Republicans?"
Click here to work for jobs
Sincerely,
Jim Scheibel, Chair
The following link takes you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the
Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
J S
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