Corporate Executives Behaving Badly.
December 14, 2012 Leave a comment
OMAHA, NE – Some of the most anti-middle class aspects of capitalism are the people in charge of our largest corporations. The same people who only care about themselves, their salary and the dividends for the stock holders. When will we start developing a corporate culture that cares about the people doing the labor? The same people who do the work are also the same people doing the great majority of consuming. We have a minimum wage because we know companies would pay our American workers even less if given the chance. Perhaps it is time to pass a maximum wage law for those who gives themselves and others ridiculous salaries and pay raises at the detriment of their own workers, their own company and our nation’s economy.
Let’s take for example, Hostess Brands a large corporation now closing its doors. Company executives blame the Union, even though the Union took a pay cut. But, the companies executives took anywhere from 80% to 300% raises in their salaries. Who bankrupted the Hostess maker, again? It sure wasn’t the Union. They were willing to take pay cuts and in fact had already received pay cuts, while the executives were not willing to sacrifice in the same manner to save their company nor their workers.
In recent years, during tougher economic times, there has been a chilling trend of CEO’s receiving ridiculously high rates of pay while their employees receive pay cuts, or loose their jobs when the company crashes. At Caterpillar, they froze workers’ pay and boosted the CEO’s pay to a ridiculous $17 million. Perhaps it is time to create a maximum wage law and actually give all that wealth a real chance at “trickling down”.
As the President and Congress fight over the Fiscal Cliff, various CEO’s of our nation’s largest corporations are pushing their agenda on a budget deficit their corporate welfare culture helped create in the first place. These rich corporations collectively bargained to have their tax rate reduced to “ZERO” and now they want to dictate how a budget deficit they helped create will be solved at taxpayers expense. They want the government to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while they continue take corporate welfare funds from the government.
Perhaps it is time to pass laws or incentives at the Federal level to steer companies into becoming more like Costco and other companies with strong, pro-employee models that still ensure a sounds profitable base.
