Workers Make, Executives Take
Chief executive officers at S&P 500 companies made on average a whopping 335 times more than ordinary rank-and-file workers in 2015, according to a new AFL-CIO report.
The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the United States, found that while working people continued to see stagnating wages averaging just $36,900 per year, CEOs thrived to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
Outsourcing has only made the gaping pay disparity between the people who do the work and the people who reap the benefits even worse.
Some 36,000 workers at Verizon are on strike because the company, which saw a record $39 billion in profits over the past three years, wants to give their jobs to low-wage contractors. In 2015, CEO Lowell McAdam made 498 times the average Verizon worker.
Mondelez International, which makes Nabisco products like Oreos and Ritz Crackers, announced earlier this year that it is sending 600 middle class jobs from Illinois to Mexico so that its CEO, Irene Rosenfeld, can continue to make her $9,471.15 an hour.
CEO pay, especially among the big banks that caused the financial crisis in 2008, doesn’t even seem to be connected to performance.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, received a whopping 35 percent raise to $27 million for 2015. This despite the fact that the bank’s operating profit fell 2 percent last year while J.P. Morgan cut 6,671 jobs.
CEOs of other big banks received similar compensation packages, under similar circumstances.
“We must stop Wall Street CEOs from continuing to profit on the backs of working people,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. “It’s shameful that a CEO can make that type of money and still destroy the livelihoods of the hard-working people who make the company profitable."
Some 36,000 workers at Verizon are on strike because the company, which saw a record $39 billion in profits over the past three years, wants to give their jobs to low-wage contractors. In 2015, CEO Lowell McAdam made 498 times the average Verizon worker.
Mondelez International, which makes Nabisco products like Oreos and Ritz Crackers, announced earlier this year that it is sending 600 middle class jobs from Illinois to Mexico so that its CEO, Irene Rosenfeld, can continue to make her $9,471.15 an hour.
CEO pay, especially among the big banks that caused the financial crisis in 2008, doesn’t even seem to be connected to performance.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, received a whopping 35 percent raise to $27 million for 2015. This despite the fact that the bank’s operating profit fell 2 percent last year while J.P. Morgan cut 6,671 jobs.
CEOs of other big banks received similar compensation packages, under similar circumstances.
“We must stop Wall Street CEOs from continuing to profit on the backs of working people,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “It’s shameful that a CEO can make that type of money and still destroy the livelihoods of the hard-working people who make the company profitable.”
