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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

#501

Post by davorak »

kolbe wrote: post #400
davorak wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only time I see arguments against high CEO pay (speaking generally), it's from people that know absolutely nothing about what a CEO does or how exceptionally difficult it is to operate a very big company. The most common argument I see is that the ceo pay has increased relative to the common or average employee salary. I doubt being a ceo has become that much more difficult over the same time period though.

> I doubt being a ceo has become that much more difficult over the same time period though. So what? The fact that you think this is an argument and not a meaningless talking point further supports the idea that you cannot even comprehend what a CEO does.

The comment I am responding to implied a link between difficulty to pay. What I quoted does not make sense otherwise. If you take that implication to be true and the difficulty of being a ceo has not change in portion to the wage change, which is my claim, then there has to be some other mechanism at play.(this is similar to what I said in my other comment[1]).

The best response I can hope for to my comment is one that tries to explain the mechanism and whether or not it makes society more productive or not and maybe other associated costs if there are any.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37565350

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

#502

Post by dfiohnio »

Minor49er wrote: post #139
aaomidi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 day work week has been successful in most places. As a world we should move towards it. Other benefit: less environmental impact, more time for people to improve themselves and their mental health, etc.

When picking candidates for employment, why would an employer choose someone who is willing to work five days over someone willing to only work four? A stressed-out employee who is at work is going to outperform a well-rested employee who isn't present

[dead]

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

#503

Post by satvikpendem »

grecy wrote: post #498
jmye wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? No individual assembly line worker has any particular value - so if the aggregate increases then the equation, in your example, is “in check”, whatever that means. Alternatively, if assembly workers were difficult to effectively replace, they would get paid more. Simply doing some unit of work neither makes that unit of work valuable, nor does it make the person doing it valuable.

> nor does it make the person doing it valuable That is a very sad way to look at human life, and I hope these strikes now and into the future prove that not to be true.

They obviously mean "valuable" in terms of value to the company, not literal value as a human being.

In any case, yes, if someone wants to smash rocks with a hammer, manually, all day, their work would not be valuable to a company building cars, which is what the parent means. Simply doing some sort of "work" for work's sake has no value if that work is not useful.

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

#504

Post by doctorwho42 »

pc_edwin wrote: post #306

I remember getting downvoted then flagged for making a reasonable argument against a bunch of employees from Tesla unionising. While its not exactly a vindication, I feel super vindicated right now and I'm not gonna be reasonable this time. These companies have no way out, they are going to die! All these people will lose their livelihood and worse their options to monetise their skillset/experience will be next to z…

Yes the CEO should make more, but where do you get off that a single individual can possibly do 300-400x more work than another individual. It is sheer absurdity of an opinion to hold.

In a civilized society I would say maxing out the top paid employee of a company to 20-30x of the average of the salaries of the bottom half of all salaries in the company is what should be done. Anything more than that creates a system of perverse incentives to take action that is against the greater good of the community.

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

#505

Post by bagels »

nebulousthree wrote: post #453
bagels wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Where did I state that the 21B in profit needs to go to shareholders? I'm all for giving the employees more of the profits, but not because it's unfair that the CEO gets paid well.

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

#506

Post by bagels »

thisgoesnowhere wrote: post #334
bagels wrote: post #279

People get really fixated on CEO pay. Its only of symbolic importance. Google says: 167,000 GM employees Mary Barra salary: $29M Distribute that salary across the whole workforce: $174 per employee They should really be talking about it in terms of inflation or profit margin. GM profit for 2022 was $21B

This is a super bizarre argument. I suppose I should be paid 167,000 more per year as a software engineer at GM because it's only 1 dollar per employee?

Sure if the board thinks that you singularly deliver the value, why not?

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

#507

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Just wondering, but are any of the American car companies doing well besides Tesla? Every year they seem more irrelevant, even Texans will buy Japanese pickup trucks these days. I just don’t see them rich enough to pay their CEO or workers 40% raises, and that increase is just going to be temporary as their business become less viable and layoffs or insolvency follows.

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

#508

Post by thisgoesnowhere »

bagels wrote: post #506
thisgoesnowhere wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a super bizarre argument. I suppose I should be paid 167,000 more per year as a software engineer at GM because it's only 1 dollar per employee?

Sure if the board thinks that you singularly deliver the value, why not?

I wonder why the board always seems to think they are the most important and therefore highly paid people within the company.

So interesting how that works.

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

#509

Post by bugglebeetle »

jmye wrote: post #468
grecy wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why did the CEO's salary increase more than the workers? To keep the equation in check, surely they need to increase at the same rate

Why? No individual assembly line worker has any particular value - so if the aggregate increases then the equation, in your example, is “in check”, whatever that means. Alternatively, if assembly workers were difficult to effectively replace, they would get paid more. Simply doing some unit of work neither makes that unit of work valuable, nor does it make the person doing it valuable.

I’d argue that no individual CEO has any particular value, or at least no more than an exceptional worker. What they have done instead is effectively organize as a class (Capital owners) to make companies profits accrue to themselves. This is why they also all serve in the boards of each other’s companies.

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

#510

Post by supertrope »

bagels wrote: post #443
supertrope wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies and individuals do not make decisions based on posturing or their pet peeves. If a company has not outsourced a plant already for cost savings there are reasons for still keeping that operation in the US.

If labor costs go up 40%, but only in the US factories, I don't see how that doesn't lead to more parts & assembly in Mexico, Canada, China, etc.

The corporate counter-offer is 20%. Clearly they’re fine still employing a US workforce with double digit employment cost inflation - over four years.
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