American Companies and the way they treat workers

[GTO Man]

This post relates to Wolf employees rejecting the companies attempt to cut their wages and benefits 20%. Sums it up very well.

Madison.com Article

Merc Marine pulled this same union busting, mid contract squeeze play, and finally won concessions after several votes, and the State giving them a goody bag of financial shelters and incentives to stay. They pitted Stillwater OK against Fond du Lac. Now, they say they are moving the jobs from Stillwater to Fondy. This is nothing but corporate piracy, and a disgraceful assault by a corporate class of pirates upon communities in the name of ‘just business’.

This crap doesn’t go on in most any other country, because their ethic is different. Yes, Japanese companies have brought manufacturing to the US, but on their model of industrial organization. They don’t have unions, but have the ethics and vision to provide honest and honorable relationships with their employees. They don’t treat them like disposable garbage.

Another good place to look at what the corpocracy in this country has evolved to, is to look at their exec pay compared to the average worker. The ratios are stunningly less in all the other industrialized countries. Yet, Wolf won’t release its honest financials, to show need for this assault on its workers. What are their exec comps compared to what they are asking?

Ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay
Japan
11:1
Germany
12:1
France
15:1
Italy
20:1
Canada
20:1
South Africa
21:1
Britain
22:1
Hong Kong
41:1
Mexico
47:1
Venezuela
50:1
United States
475:1

The US corpocracy has become accustomed to this sort of greed and feel entitled to their taxpayer bailouts of their mismanagement and greedy practices (just like Merc Marine and what Wolf is angling for). It is a disgrace and begs a new industrial set of policies to disincentivize and heavily fine and tax those corps that play this extortion/migration game of off-shore or inter state dislocation of jobs. Move your jobs – tarrif your products! States and communities along with the fed gov should all cooperate to save eachother from this ugly corporate game, or resign ourselves to the inevitable spiral of wage standards to a third world country, with a 1% elite wealthy plutocracy running everything.

Topic

[Garibaldi]

Quote:

United States
475:1

That is just crazy! How can one job be 500 times harder than another? How is it even possible to measure such a thing?

[Anonymous]

Not just 500 times harder, but WORTH 500 TIMES MORE PAY!!! No Friggin Way. NOBODY’s worth that.

It’s no wonder that our economy is in the dumps. Better learn Chinese.

Anybody wanna buy a Harley while they’re still temporarily a Wisconsin company?? Another disgrace.

[GTO Man]

China owns a big percentage of this country. Why isn’t the government in this country more concerned?

[Anonymous]

So anyone here can do their job i take it? Wow, i never knew there was soooo many corporate savvy people on this forum. I would start with firing state and government workers and replacing them with monkeys before attacking people in the PRIVATE sector because they can do a job that you are not even quallified to do.

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[GTO Man]

Your argument carries no weight. Why is a CEO in this country worth 475 times more than the average worker? Many who have brought their company to the brink of bankruptcy or into bankruptcy are rewarded with golden parachutes for their mis-management.

[Anonymous]

[img]http://C:Documents and SettingsIkeMy DocumentsMy Picturespath-to-fail.jpg[/img]

GTO Man wrote:

Quote:

Your argument carries no weight. Why is a CEO in this country worth 475 times more than the average worker? Many who have brought their company to the brink of bankruptcy or into bankruptcy are rewarded with golden parachutes for their mis-management.

Thanks for proving my point. You said average. Average. No education, no experience, no sacrifice. You point to a few cases of simple greed out of thousands upon thousands of companies, PRIVATE companies, and say “oh! look, look, look! These people are not worth spit!”

So tell me. Are you going to have some feds march into these campanies and seize control?? Because everything is run so much better when the “G” is at the helm? Your only solution to every problem is more government involvment which turns into a shit sandwich for the tax payers.

As always you never include my point about getting rid of these worthless positions at the government level. I would think with all your p&m about spending money foolishly, that would top your list. But it doesn’t. Instead controling the private sector does. Weird.

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[GTO Man]

I said nothing about the government doing anything with these companies. Leave the government out of it. This has to do with the greed of the people at the top. If the average worker at a company makes $40k, is the CEO of that company worth $19,000,000. I am talking about publicly traded companies where the CEO makes huge money and the companies performance is not up to par. I could care less about the privately owned companies, though I wouldn’t buy their products if I thought the upper management was raking it in while screwing the lower level workers. With private companies that information is unavailable, as it should be.

Comcast – CEO made $40.8 million and the stock ended 7% lower than the previous year.

Abercrombie & Fitch – The CEO pulled in a total of $71.8 million while the companies stock fell 71%.

I don’t consider the average worker to be uneducated, inexperienced, or unwilling to sacrifice. With the downtown in the economy the last couple of years many ‘average’ workers have had to sacrifice plenty. Longer hours, less benefits, sometimes cuts in pay. Not all but many companies have used the situation to squeeze every little bit out of their workers. And if the economy in this country ever returns to the point where decent paying jobs are created many employers will be losing some of their best people. Unfortunately I think companies are safe in that respect because I don’t see those jobs being created.

[Amigo2k]

Just a couple of stats: Ave of the Forbes 500 show a decrease in CEO salaries from 2007-2009

[img]https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/rendres/web/ceo.JPG[/img]

Database with 3000 companies that gives you the CEO salary vs ave salary at the company:

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/database.cfm

Here are a couple of companies that have local branches in Madison

THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC

CEO: 34 Million for 2009
Ave: 32k
Has had multiple lay-offs over the past couple of years in Madison

ALLIANT ENERGY CORP

CEO 3.3 million for 2009
Ave: 32k

M&I bank
CEO 1.7 million
Ave: 32k

TDS
CEO: 6.3 million
Ave: 32k

Here is just WI (publicly traded companies):

The average CEO pay in Wisconsin is $ 3,447,963.
The average annual income of all occupations in Wisconsin in 2008 was $ 39,350.

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/clcfind.cfm?state=WI

[Anonymous]

GTO Man said it…..Greed

gh

[Anonymous]

GTO Man wrote:

Quote:

I said nothing about the government doing anything with these companies. Leave the government out of it. This has to do with the greed of the people at the top. If the average worker at a company makes $40k, is the CEO of that company worth $19,000,000. I am talking about publicly traded companies where the CEO makes huge money and the companies performance is not up to par. I could care less about the privately owned companies, though I wouldn’t buy their products if I thought the upper management was raking it in while screwing the lower level workers. With private companies that information is unavailable, as it should be.

Comcast – CEO made $40.8 million and the stock ended 7% lower than the previous year.

Abercrombie & Fitch – The CEO pulled in a total of $71.8 million while the companies stock fell 71%.

I don’t consider the average worker to be uneducated, inexperienced, or unwilling to sacrifice. With the downtown in the economy the last couple of years many ‘average’ workers have had to sacrifice plenty. Longer hours, less benefits, sometimes cuts in pay. Not all but many companies have used the situation to squeeze every little bit out of their workers. And if the economy in this country ever returns to the point where decent paying jobs are created many employers will be losing some of their best people. Unfortunately I think companies are safe in that respect because I don’t see those jobs being created.

Soooo you’re saying that publicly traded companies are not in the private sector? I think you’re confused which explains alot. You claim that you want to leave government out of it but yet who do you want to set the limits on what people can make? You? Me? The gingerbread man? You’re all over the board on this one. But i realize how advancements in technology have made it easy just to copy and paste someone elses socialist talking points.:ohmy:

Maybe i think you are making too much money at your job. What if your company that you work for looses money in the worst economy in 50 years? Off with their heads right? Again when it pertains to you it’s another subject matter. I’m still wondering who you think is qualified to set payroll standards?

You can take the duder scrubbing floors at night in the warehouse and make him CEO? If it is as easy as you say it is we would all be CEO’s. But it’s not.

[GTO Man]

That is one of the good things about this country, everyone can have their own opinion.

[Author]

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