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

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

#451

Post by mr_toad » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 1:54 AM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #329

I'm surprised unions don't throw their weight around more via equity ownership in the company. Controlling the company directly is really the endgame move, once they control a majority stake, they're literally just negotiating with themselves for their labor contracts. Even better, if they're managing their pensions via investment houses, why not just build their own investment house and leverage their negotiating po…

If they could afford that they wouldn’t need jobs. They’d need to hire a bunch of new workers.

It would be interesting to see what happened when the shoe was on the other foot.

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

#452

Post by WkndTriathlete » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 1:55 AM UTC

acdha wrote: post #438

amrocha wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree but would phrase it differently: C-level stress is often self-created – gotta have a bigger mansion, longer yacht, hotter trophy wife, etc. than my frat buddies - whereas many of their employees’ stress is externally-driven - hoping the car doesn’t break and cost you a job, worrying that the cost and time of a return to office mandate will take a big chunk of what’s left of your margin after inflation, etc. I…

I'm married to an exec and I can tell you both that

(a) The stress is very real, and (b) It's not self-created, it arises due to the responsibility and magnitude of decision-making coupled with having to deal with other execs that are promoted beyond their ability yet somehow still have absolute faith in their ability to lead and execute despite their limited experience, worldview, or both, and (c) It seems to be about the same amount of stress as those worrying about tight finances, but less than those worrying about where the next meal is coming from.

Having said that the majority of CEOs that my spouse and I have worked for cannot find their asses with both hands but a minority of them have been incredibly good and well worth the compensation they were paid.

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

#453

Post by nebulousthree » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 1:56 AM UTC

bagels wrote: post #386

pests wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always see people show this equation and it never made sense to me. No one is saying the CEO is taking money the employees would have otherwise earned. When you divide it out like that of course its a pittance per employee. The statement is about the relative scale of the CEO pay to one employee. I don't care about the difference applied to all employees. An absurd parody I always imagine: John is 7ft tall. His gro…

It frequently doesn't matter how much the CEO makes. It's not why the other employees aren't making more money. It's just a distraction. It boils down to "it's not fair". If what is important is the ratio between CEO pay and employee pay, then the board can cut CEO pay, and call it a day. That doesn't improve employee pay. If the employees really only care about that ratio, then they should accept that outcome from t…

This is some of the most disingenuous crap I've read in a while. Flip it on its head:

"If c-suite really only cares about $ spent on labor, they would accept the productivity outcome of their salary proposals to employees. But they don't. They want to get more productivity, just like the workers of [insert competing corp], while not changing or even reducing comp."

The reason your comment is disingenuous is that it assumes that the best place for this money to go is into c-suite/board pockets, and for some reason assumes that workers wouldn't take the couple extra grand the CEO pay split would give them. I challenge any CEO to put it up to a (non-binding, don't shit yourself) company-wide vote.

But let's disregard the salary split. It is an incredibly simple-minded way of approaching what to do with millions/year. Are all of you, who justify these ridiculous ratios, truly unable to think of ways to spend dozens of millions of dollars to improve all employees' qualities of life? Those who spend all this money on consultants to figure out how to squeeze an extra penny of profits can't figure out how to further optimize the health of the workforce instead?

Cue the comments about "no choice, fiduciary duty". Makes me sick.

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

#454

Post by AndrewKemendo » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 1:56 AM UTC

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #332

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #304

This is great. Add this to SAG-AFTRA, Waffle House workers and Starbucks walkouts and we have real movement toward a general strike If both Wal-Mart and Amazon drivers strike we might actually have a shot a taking a bite out of capital finally.

serious question: say everyone you described gets a 20% raise what do you think will happen to the cost of goods? what companies do you think are operating with enough margin that they can just afford a 20% rise in their payroll costs?

Think differently

It’s not about a one time 20% raise

Think more like:

“4 day work week”

“Return to 1945-1949 tax rates”

“convert corporate to cooperative ownership”

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

#455

Post by pests » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 1:57 AM UTC

bagels wrote: post #386

pests wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always see people show this equation and it never made sense to me. No one is saying the CEO is taking money the employees would have otherwise earned. When you divide it out like that of course its a pittance per employee. The statement is about the relative scale of the CEO pay to one employee. I don't care about the difference applied to all employees. An absurd parody I always imagine: John is 7ft tall. His gro…

It frequently doesn't matter how much the CEO makes. It's not why the other employees aren't making more money. It's just a distraction. It boils down to "it's not fair". If what is important is the ratio between CEO pay and employee pay, then the board can cut CEO pay, and call it a day. That doesn't improve employee pay. If the employees really only care about that ratio, then they should accept that outcome from t…

I agree I was just stating that comparison above I don't like.

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

#456

Post by turnsout » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 2:04 AM UTC

throw0101b wrote: post #445

turnsout wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve was replaced with one of the greatest minds in Operations that history has ever known, and much of Apple's success under Steve was thanks to Tim. So Apple is not the best example if you're trying to show "CEOs don't matter."

> So Apple is not the best example if you're trying to show "CEOs don't matter." I wasn't try to show that they don't matter, but that they are replaceable. And few companies need to have "the greatest mind in Operations that history has ever known" to function well. Does Eli Lilly, Unitedheath, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Home Depot, Pepsico, Walmart, Coca Cola, Accenture, Intuit, Caterpillar, Lowes, Nike?…

So CEOs can definitely wreck a company, but they’re all interchangeable? Not sure I follow.

Everyone is replaceable, but some people are simply better suited for their role than others.

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

#457

Post by mr_toad » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 2:10 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #124

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…

> As many argue, wages are only set by supply and demand. Most of the time that I see people invoke "Econ 101" concepts, they are wrong. Supply and demand does not account for the power imbalance between workers and leadership, which unions specifically attempt to address. It does not account for the class differences between workers trying to make ends meet and the board of directors who believe they deserve much hi…

> Supply and demand does not account for the power imbalance between workers and leadership

Supply and demand is the imbalance. The workers, individually have no control over supply. The whole point of a union is to control the supply of labour and shift the balance of power.

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

#458

Post by elcritch » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 2:15 AM UTC

throw0101b wrote: post #437

elcritch wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though this argument falls apart with evidence that CEOs of big firms do need to deeply understand their companies domain. It may work to a degree, but doesn’t seem to coincide with the most valuable companies. It’s why when Intel was floundering a few years back they got rid of CEO and brought on a CEO with deep engineering expertise. Tim Cook is a wizard of supply chain, and in many ways that’s a large part of Appl…

> Though this argument falls apart with evidence that CEOs of big firms do need to deeply understand their companies domain. Counter-example: the last few CEOs of Boeing who have completely messed up the company. They came from the Jack Welch of GE school of management, and it turns out that Welch et al were cooking the books. See also Enron and WorldCom.

How is that a counter example? Seems like another example of “professional managers” coming in and screwing up a company.

The first Boeing CEOs were from Boeing and were steeped in Boeings engineering culture and valued that expertise. Later CEOs like you mentioned didn’t. Boeing also acquired McDonnell Douglas, and many thought it was great that Boeing got to keep all McDD’s “experienced” managers.

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

#459

Post by sudosysgen » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 2:19 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #428

sudosysgen wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That does not follow in the slightest.

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

#460

Post by reddozen » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

thelastgallon wrote: post #426

reddozen wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you want to come up with a different word sure, I would just call whatever you defined there as traditional a corporation.

But worker cooperatives is known as "one worker, one vote" and anarcho syndicalists like Richard Wolff wouldn't consider that a worker cooperative anymore.