Posted by Tina
Byron York, writing in the Washington Examiner, brings us the most outrageous claim I have ever heard. This is a real doozy. AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumpka apparently observed that, “organized labor’s benefits and prerogatives — wages, health care, and pensions that are more generous than those of comparable workers in the private sector — are the moral equivalent of rights won by black Americans.”
Are you kidding me? Perspective, man…perspective!
Here’s a dude who, according to one website,
The labor Educator, gave himself big fat raises over a four year period (from $165,000 to $238,975) while putting the union $2.3 million in the red.
This is not about rights. It’s about power and grabbing as much of other people money as he can through extortion and intimidation. And for him personally it’s also about feeding like a blood sucker off the backs of the workers who pay dues.
Geez man, get a real job and earn your way in the world for a change and while you’re at it leave the civil rights movement out of it. There is simply NO comparison.
If you could pull your head out and read ANYthing besides the Wash Times, you’d know the economic import of slavery.
Slavery was just good business!
Corporatists have always tried to keep wages poor.
this is ALL about rights.
Civil rights are totally intertwined with economic rights–you don’t see the rich rioting in the Middle East, do you?
Why don’t the CEOs get a real job and earn their way?
Why is it a guy trying to make a buck is an America-destroying sleaze, but if you made that same guy a CEO all of a sudden his interests would be with his fellow man?
What you Tories won’t admit–though you certainly realize it–is that human nature is
human nature.
What is the differwence between a CEO and a big chees union guy?
Not a GD thing!
Quentin, its my thought that people should be paid what they are worth. That’s the most fair thing we can do in a free market society. But, its not as easy as it might seem for what is fair to one company, may not be fair to another.
We can factor roughly how much a blue collar worker needs to turn out in terms of product to justify his hourly wage. I think the latest model is about 2.65 times the hourly wage rate. In the most general terms this takes care of R&D and base line business costs, admin costs, ads, inflation, shipping to market and still leaving some room for a reasonable profit.
The higher up one goes on the corporate ladder the more abstract the salary v product calcs get, but second tier or supervisorial staff tend to be rated on how much they can increase productivity and sales and they get a percentage of that plus fixed salary.
FAIR AND BALANCED: Okay so what’s a CEO worth? This is a moving target, because over the last century mass production has changed the way we value CEO’s. To the best of my recollection during most that last century they were valued about 15 times the salary of entry level workers. (Not any more – its more 150-200 times)
However, over time (not overtime) pay was geared more to performance pay and modern models for performance pay have a way of assigning a “performance” number ( I forget the formula). This number determines if he/she is under or overpaid or about right, and its kinda on the order of a price to sales ratio if you follow me?
Compensation packages are the most popular forms of pay for CEO. Often times a CEO of a large corporation might draw a really small salary, but stock options and incentive/perrformance pay add up to millions….tens of millions!
SALARY POLICE: The board of directors is charged with setting the compensation package for their CEO and for a long time they did a pretty fair job of watching out for the stockholder. Unfortunately in the last 20 years those BoD’s have become the CEO’s personal team, not the shareholder watch dogs they are supposed to be and the result has been akin to pillaging the coffers. The CEO of Tyco used his companies vault like his own checking account. He want too far and was sent to jail for it, but many take just enough to hurt or break the company, but not too much to be charged with outright fraud. The relationship between BoD’s and CEO’s has become way too incestuous, thus we have the unjustified high salaries we hear about all the time in the news. These are the new robber barons and they hurt everyone (like Enron’s Jeff Skilling).
We really need to clean up the looting by CEO’s, there’s no question in my mind about it. I have some ideas too, but thats another subject for another time.
Quentin: “Why don’t the CEOs get a real job and earn their way?”
Do you have the skills to run a major corporation? Not too many people do…that’s what makes the job worth some bucks.
What is the job of a union boss? What do they produce? How do they EARN their keep? Spending union workers dues to elect democrats so they can get more union friendly bailouts and legislation, organizing union members into loud, sometimes violent, angry mobs, and BULLYING for bigger BUCKS!
CEO’s are responsible to see that EVERYTHING works in a company. Not too many people have the skill to do that.
It’s the same for someone who can accurately place a baseball at 85 to 100 MPH over the plate. They get big bucks because they can do something that few can do.
Julia Roberts (in her day) and Angelina Jolie get big bucks because they can act AND they have “it”…a quality that brings big box office…few can do that even if they can act well.
Pull your own head out. You can’t even tell the truth about something as simple as the sources I use for my posts. A six year old could prove you wrong!
“Why is it a guy trying to make a buck is an America-destroying sleaze, but if you made that same guy a CEO all of a sudden his interests would be with his fellow man?”
Once again can you read? Are you capable of having a thought beyond your own idiot prejudices?
The union, as even YOU have pointed out, has become big business. This victim act they play is long passed the stink stage. Most make more than workers in the private sector. Public sector unions are not negotiating with a corporation making a product…they are EXTORTING from taxpayers. Car unions “negotiated” for compensation that bankrupted the company and woukld have killed their own jobs (if not for taxpayer bailouts). THAT IS THE ULTIMATE IN GREED…AND STUPIDITY! At some point they have to realize they have overplayed their hand. That they are working against themselves and in some cases the taxpayers who pay them.
I am all for a guy wanting to make a buck. I’m for all people making as much as they possibly can. This is not a guy making a buck…this is a mob using intimidation to extort higher compensation….it doesn’t represent hard work, self improvement, innovation, risk, investment or extra effort. This is the MOB pushing itself around and acting the big bully. There is zero integrity left in these organizations. Its a “workers of the world unite” mentality that has no place in a free economy.
“What is the differwence between a CEO and a big chees union guy?”
The company can fire a CEO if he fails to perform or gets too big for his britches. BOD’s do need to behave more responsibly in their oversight responsibilities. The fact remains, however, that stockholders have the choice to sell their stocks if they disapprove of a CEO’s compensation. BOD’s have a choice to keep or get rid of a CEO and they have a choice about what they offer a CEO when they hire him. The only choice when negotiating with the union is to accept their demands or close the comapny down now that compensation has reached the upper limits. Individuals that perform extremely well cannot be compensated on merit. Instead every employee must be given what a handful deserves.
This isn’t about civil rights anymore. Not even close.
Speaking of horse posteriors …
This morning on the notorious Pacifica Foundation’s “Democracy Now!” Ralph Nader called Barak Obama a war criminal. I nearly spit up my cup-o-joe. Gawd, I love Pacifica. They make the NYT look like the bench squad.
And now this special treat! Quentin Colgan’s latest juvenile outburst “If you could pull your head out and read ANYthing besides the Wash Times, you’d know the economic import of slavery.”
THAR HE BLOWS!
(Like I noted just a day or two ago, give it time. It sure didn’t take long for ol’ Quentin to build up another head of steam. Yeah, duuuuude, thanks, like we are all ignorant of the economic basis for slavery.)
Not to burst your bubble Mr. Colgan, but just in case you didn’t notice while you were so busy foaming at the mouth, the story came from the Washington Examiner, not the Washington Times.
Now you ‘re AGAINST mobs.
Hmmm. last year, you were all for mobs.
You said they were exercising free speech.
Hmmm.
You seem to be clueless as to what goes into an enterprise.
You seem to think teachers’ salaries are the only cost for education–ignoring the hundreds of billions siphoned off to book-publishing companies. Their CEOs know how to bribe California into giving them exclusivity on 2+2=4.
Tell me, Tina, how much skill does that take? How much of a sweat does that guy work up? How many calories did he burn?
Screwing the taxpayers and BSing idiots like you into doing my bidding isn’t a skill I would want to exercise.
GMs labor costs are less than one-ninth–ONE-NINTH–of what they were 35 years ago. Labor isn’t the reason cars cost 6-8 times what they cost 35 years ago.
Pull you head out, Tina.
Examine ALL of the costs in ANY enterprise. don’t take my word for it.
Do some research.
Jack?
Maybe the best way to figure it would be to follow the path that worked best!
Let’s use as our model the times we grew up in.
How ’bout that?
How ’bout when ONE income was all that was needed for 2 cars and a 2 week vacation every summer? When CEOs made a FAIR wage too!
The economy is 4 times the size it was then and we make 2/3 thirds less! WTF?
Companies weren’t going bankrupt in the 60s–America was a freakin’ powerhouse!
Now?
We’re falling fast.
Why?
Well, it isn’t because we’re paying teachers $50,000 a year!
We’re falling because Tina and other idiots can’t think their way out of a paper bag. They think corrupting government is a marketable skill that ought to be rewarded!
They think it takes some kind of $165 million a year skill to slip an envelope to the head of a Congressional committee.
As long as the uneducated believe that $165 Million is fair for bribing congress and $50,000 is too much to educate their children (Hmmm, THEIR teachers were certainly overpaid . . ) America will continue to fall.
I hope God will show them mercy.