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Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

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Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#421

Post by refurb »

mulmen wrote: post #274
refurb wrote: post #246

The average CEO at a top U.S. company was paid $27.8 million in 2021, including stock awards — 399 times as much as the typical worker — according to research published by EPI. From 1978 to 2021, CEO pay grew by 1,460%, adjusted for inflation, versus just 18.1% for the typical worker. Auto workers aside, this is always a crappy stat that is thrown about. "Top US companies" is rife with survivorship bias. It's like sa…

> Well yeah, when a company is successful, compensation rises. Only for the C-suite apparently. > When the car company does really well, they make a ton of money, when it does poorly, they make almost nothing. That’s already how it works. Workers took pay cuts in 2008 to keep the companies going. It worked and now the UAW is asking for the same pay recovery that the C-suite already received.

> Only for the C-suite apparently.

Seems like you missed the point entirely, but ok.

But anyways, that's false, US autoworkers have a profit sharing component to compensation.

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2023/0...

> That’s already how it works. Workers took pay cuts in 2008 to keep the companies going. It worked and now the UAW is asking for the same pay recovery that the C-suite already received.

Workers did not take pay cuts in 2008, the autoworker unions actually created a multi-tier compensation structure that protected existing union workers (surprise!) and penalized all the new hires.

And CEO compensation, at least at GM dropped by ~80% after the 2008 crash.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gm-compensation-idUSTRE73...

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#422

Post by syndicatedjelly »

skyyler wrote: post #81
cj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO an equation like that would be fine as long as you made it possible for CEOs of larger companies to make more money than CEOs of small and medium sized companies. There’s a job market for C-Suite employees (whether we care to admit it or not). At a certain point you won’t get qualified candidates if you can’t reward them enough, same as engineers or any other role. The answer for how much CEOs should be paid is t…

Well that's simple, larger companies that want to pay their CEO more can pay their lowest paid employees more.

I guarantee you California will find a way to legislate this view into existence within the next year, with horrendous results.

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#423

Post by WalterBright »

highwaylights wrote: post #57
econperplexed wrote: post #8

> From 1978 to 2021, CEO pay grew by 1,460%, adjusted for inflation, versus just 18.1% for the typical worker. Why has the supply of CEOs not kept up with the demand for them? Surely, with the improvement in education and in increase in MBA programs, there must be far more CEOs today than in 1978. Why has the ratio of CEOs to Companies fallen by 14x for their wages to rise this much? /s As many argue, wages are only…

To paint the above in starker terms: Worker pay is set by the leadership, leadership pay is set by the leadership.

Worker pay is set by supply & demand. After all, the pay has to be enough to attract workers.

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#424

Post by amrocha »

Alupis wrote: post #98
hinkley wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also been suggested that Congressional salaries be a fixed multiple of minimum wage, and for similar reasons. Honestly I think that would probably fix things a lot faster.

> suggested that Congressional salaries be a fixed multiple of minimum wage That's insane no matter how you look at it. Minimum wage is paid by individuals, private businesses and their owners. Congressional pay is paid for with your money - an effective infinite of your money, or they'll just poof new money out of nowhere to continue to pay themselves. Correlating the two is plain wrong.

Why do you think it matters where the money comes from?

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#425

Post by [deleted] »

amrocha wrote: post #409
nateburke wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s a job market for C-Suite employees And it can sometimes be VERY illiquid. Headhunters help to provide this liquidity and get paid for it. Sometimes C-suite career people can go years without a job. Not every CEO or CFO makes fortune 500 comp and many people falsely assume low compensation volatility as e.g. a "career CFO". It can be extremely stressful, especially with family/dependents.

No. There is no financial stress in a CEOs life. The CEO that can't afford private yacht lessons for their daughter is not the same as the single mom working 2 jobs to feed her children. Stop drawing a false equivalency.

[deleted]

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#426

Post by thelastgallon »

reddozen wrote: post #355
abeppu wrote: post #183

Just to point out a demonstrated, viable, successful reality achieved under different values and assumptions, the Mondragon Corporation/cooperative produces car parts, among many other things, and has pre-agreed ratios for wages for executives relative to the lowest wages paid to workers, and this tops out at 9:1. Studies have found that worker-owned coops have a greater survival rate than conventional businesses, an…

Mondragon is not a worker cooperative. They have a three-tiered worked system[0] with clear hierarchical structures and differences in voting power. The temporary worker tier (largest) having no voting power whatsoever. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290978631_The_Mondr...

"cooperatives don't have to treat everyone exactly the same. You can have different "classes" of members.

some ideas about how to offer "founder incentives" in workers cooperatives."

From a recent HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37304911

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#427

Post by syndicatedjelly »

amrocha wrote: post #409
nateburke wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s a job market for C-Suite employees And it can sometimes be VERY illiquid. Headhunters help to provide this liquidity and get paid for it. Sometimes C-suite career people can go years without a job. Not every CEO or CFO makes fortune 500 comp and many people falsely assume low compensation volatility as e.g. a "career CFO". It can be extremely stressful, especially with family/dependents.

No. There is no financial stress in a CEOs life. The CEO that can't afford private yacht lessons for their daughter is not the same as the single mom working 2 jobs to feed her children. Stop drawing a false equivalency.

Total straw man

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#428

Post by WalterBright »

sudosysgen wrote: post #255
nerdponx wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just ask for what you think you deserve and don't work if you don't get it. This is the most wildly privileged take possible on the issue.

It's called a strike and it seems to be working. The key is that everybody does it at once.

> The key...

If that were true, the pay of every non-union employee would be minimum wage.

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#429

Post by amrocha »

chadash wrote: post #339
tysam_and wrote: post #9

There is an equation with an equilibrium: CEO's pay rate = (some multiplier) * median salaried worker's pay rate OR CEO's pay rate = (some multiplier) * minimum salaried worker's pay rate We've been conditioned to think it's not fair somehow, but the discrepancy is just....engorgingly terrible. I'm not arguing for how this metric would be enforced, only that it would be a good one to have. Especially in a time when g…

The problem with this is that the CEO of Walmart is a much more important job than the CEO of McKinsey but under this formula they would get paid a fraction of the amount, no matter how well they did for Walmart workers. The end result of this situation would probably be a mad dash to automate away any blue collar work, which may not be such a great thing. It’s a tough problem.

The CEO of Walmart doesn't do anything for the Walmart workers, he works for the investors.

I would say it would be a huge upgrade to get rid of investor CEOs and put in a worker CEO in place instead.

Re: Striking auto workers want a 40% pay increase–the same rate their CEOs’ pay grew

#430

Post by throw0101b »

wang_li wrote: post #171
l33t7332273 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. As it should be. Record profits deserve record contracts.

Only if the contracts automatically follow profits. Profits are not a ratchet, while contracts typically are. Also they are asking for more than pay raises and shortened work week. They're also demanding health benefits for retirees and defined benefit pensions among other things.

> Only if the contracts automatically follow profits. Profits are not a ratchet, while contracts typically are.

Are they? When concessions are given they should also be removed: there are some elements in the contracts that date back to the hard times of 2008 that the unions are still putting up with.

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