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CEOs of top 100 ‘low-wage’ US firms earn $601 for every $1 by worker, report finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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A good reason to have laws regulating the maximum pay gap between executive and the lowest paid peon. And make sure to include all types of pay like stock options so companies can't squirm out of it.
Sounds great, and sure might as well pass it, but there's a lot of ways to get around it
Ok, let's do it anyway and make them work for their wealth. Instead of doing nothing, and letting them also do nothing to keep their wealth.
There are solutions for all of those loopholes, but it will hurt our congresspeople's investments so it will get shot down
Whatever.
It starts with paying their employees a dignified wage.
The point is that if max pay gap laws are passed, CEOs will just hide their actual pay in external resources and normal employees will still make exactly the same.
Good. Make them hide it. Then make it illegal to hide income(if it already isn't). Tax agencies like the IRS are really good at catching this sort of thing.
Make it difficult for them and their companies.
Make them have to spend to hide it. If they get caught, the money goes back to the economy. If they don't get caught, at least some the money they spend on law firms and accounts goes back to the economy.
That’s the system we have right now and it doesn’t work. Soooo…
I'm ok with this, but it's essentially just a step toward socialism which is the better option (but will never happen). Because all this will do is make CEOs less wealthy from the company itself. The investors still make tons more than the CEOs already and they don't do anything. You need to force revenue sharing essentially which is just socialism with extra steps. Cause CEOs will just end up investing in other companies and still be wealthy and get less compensation from the company itself.
I mean, it's a pretty big step. It would basically make it such that a company has to expand it's footprint to grow revenue.
No, for investors to grow revenue it would. Which was the whole initial concept of owning the means of production. You invest in what you thought would make money. You didn't invest because you wanted to take away employee's earned value to yourself. But that's what it came to. A majority of inflation is profit-driven related. Not government assistance related like many corporations and conservatives want you to think. Aside from that, any overt success is shared amongst everyone and no increase would be offset by normal COLA through the supply chain. People could survive and thrive without having to gut the value of employees or those in the supply chain. The only issue would be loss of business which is always a risk. But losses can be shared equally or if it's a large enough loss over a long enough time, it would require some folks to be laid off and depending on why, the employees could put the person running the business.
The fact that this ends up being the way that companies create more 'shareholder value' is a particular disease of modern neoliberalism. What you describe seems to me more similar to how companies in the US were run in the 1950s. More of a 'rising tide lifts all ships' approach that was used before management became antagonistic towards labor (viewing business units as 'cost centers' etc...). Its a particular framing that I think we can say does not guarantee any kind of result of profitability, but seems particularly enshrined in modern management culture.
It's enshrined in a management culture that has largely conquered labor through a mixture of anti-union measures and taking capitalism global so that they can pay as close to zero as possible for labor in other countries.
Sure, the products and services (and the country) all suffer, but nobody really seems to give a shit about that.
I don't think the point is for them to be less wealthy, the point is you shouldn't make more than 600 times what half your employees make.
I know. But investors don't care. They're the root of the problem. CEOs are simply an employee of the company that ultimately represents the shareholders interest. Affecting their pay does not affect shareholder value that much. It just commoditizes the CEO position.
Seriously, I literally just posted the same comment basically. It's really silly how fixated on CEOs people are. I guess they are an easy scapegoat example, but they're just goons hired by the board of directors on behalf of the shareholders. It's not like they straight up own the company. (Yeah yeah yeah, there's stock compensation, and some founder CEOs like Zuck still own shares after IPO etc, i know.)
Exactly. Increasing pay would be really, really nice. But we can do that and have more control over our workplaces. Worker owned companies would prevent huge disparities in pay from reoccurring, regardless of what the government does.
Like a wise and angry man once said: "Fuck the G rides, I want the machines that are making them."
Socialism is the abolition of social classes. Regulating capital is usually called Social Democracy, or Marxism. Honestly, sieze the means of production.
Hey I said this like 6 years ago on Reddit and I got downvoted and called a fucking idiot lol
Why do we not have a maximum wage when we have a minimum wage?
Because this is America and if you make rules like that you'll crush the American Dream ^tm^ and no one will want to work at all because you've taken away their ability to daydream about one day being the disgustingly rich person doing the trickling instead of the disgustingly poor person waiting to be trickled on.
I'd be absolutely ecstatic for a 1:4 ratio.