CORPORATE GREED

A UNIQUELY AMERICAN PHENOMENON
COMPENSATION PACKAGES EMPTY WORKERS’ POCKETS


Times are rapidly changing in American economic life and many workers’ budgets are stretched to the max. Everyone is pinched by the exorbitant rise in fuel and food costs that came upon us almost over night. There seems to be no end to the bad news as the value of most homes has plummeted while our savings have been tapped and credit limits reached. These are tough times for America and her workers and there seems to be no end in sight or remedy other than taking on additional work to make ends meet.

Don’t despair though, there is one segment of American culture that is doing quite well; actually exceeding beyond everyone’s wildest dreams or aspirations. They are the corporate officers of American companies.

Their compensation packages have been growing year after year and now the average American CEO makes about 400 times what his or her workers make. In the 80’s when unions enjoyed a greater stake in the American working landscape, the average CEO and corporate officer package was roughly 40 times that of their rank and file union members.

As union membership declined; working men and women saw their wages stagnate and benefits shrivel up and start to disappear; not so with our Corporate leaders. There is an almost inverse relationship with their packages; the less we make the more they are compensated. They are rewarded by boards of director with lavish packages that include high base salaries and ridiculously generous stock awards and incentive payouts. Most companies don’t have to perform well; they just have to keep wages and benefits low and stock prices high in order to receive the exorbitant rewards.

What is beguiling is that most of the rest of the successful business world doesn’t act like this. In the very business oriented countries of Japan and Germany, CEO compensation and pay is roughly only 10 to 20 times that of their workforce; throughout the greater part of the rest of the western world, corporate officers are not acting like pampered rock stars and gouging their employees while living large.

Many segments of our society have enabled this kind of practice and conduct; politicians and pundits, big investors and boards of director (mostly CEOs themselves!) have turned a blind eye to their insidious practices and greed.

Here at Delta, many employees have bought into the rhetoric and hype of the ever changing, revolving door, outsider management teams that have come and gone and taken us all for an economic plundering. We who are attempting to unionize quite simply don’t get it — the unfounded, unearned loyalty — that is shown to these come-and-go Delta executives that take millions in compensation while running the rest of us into the ground. All they seemingly have to do, while they fill their pockets with money that was quite literally taken out of our pockets, is to utter a few well worn phrases from Delta’s past and people like the Delta Board Council feign over them…Why?

Reports have it that Richard Anderson has ‘earned’ just over 11 million dollars in his short stay at Delta thus far. Why? Many of his corporate minions have been awarded stock bonuses and incentives just for coming on board. Want to bet that most of this new management team won’t be here in 4 years? They will take our money and run to the next great conquest and our compensation and pay will stay roughly the same; only the empty, stale promises will continue on. Why?

It’s our fault, folks. We have to stand up to this insanity and right our own ship through unionizing and strengthening our families and their economic future. It has to be done by us through our own strong perseverance and sweat. The IAM is the only way out of our financial malaise. The future is in our hands!