Corporate Racism And Misogyny

 Here's a little food for thought. It's a belief of many that the business community, especially the corporate business community, supports the Republican Party much more than the Democratic Party because Republicans are more business-oriented. But we already know that the stock market does better under Democratic presidents, and more private sector jobs are created under Democratic presidents, so maybe there's a different reason why corporate America supports Republicans.


But what could that different reason be? Well, take a look at the charts to the left, and maybe it'll give you a clue. The top chart shows us that the labor force is 64% White, 16% Hispanic, 12% Black, and 3% Asian.


Then we get to the second chart, which shows the racial make-up of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. The raial make-up of CEOs is much different -- being 95.8% White, 1.2% Hispanic, 0.8% Black, and 1.8% Asian. It seems like equal opportunity hasn't arrived in the boardrooms and upper echelons of the corporations. Interesting.


Then we get to the third chart. This one shows the percentage of women and men in the workforce. Note that women make up nearly half of the total workforce in this country -- about 47%. They're still not paid as well as men, but they have made their way into the workforce in a big way.


 Then chart number 4 shows us the gender make-up of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies. Once again we see a huge discrepancy. While women make up 47% of the workforce, they make up only 3.6% of the CEOs. Again, very interesting.


Are we really supposed to believe that White men are the only ones capable of running a huge corporation in America in 2012 (and I'll bet these same percentages will hold for other corporations not in the Fortune 500)? I don't buy that.


I think it is far more likely that corporate America still clings to an outdated view. They still have the racist and misogynistic belief that the top corporate jobs should go to White men. It's OK for women and different races to work at lower levels in the corporation (for ridiculously low wages), but when it comes to running a company -- that's a job that requires a White man.


Maybe the corporate honchos, the richest 1% in America, still operates through a "good old boys" club. Maybe they support Republican candidates over Democratic candidates because those Republican candidates are more closely aligned to their own views -- not on business matters, but on views toward gender and race in this country. Maybe they just feel more at home in a party that tolerates racism and misogyny.


I know that suggestion will probably irritate a lot of right-wingers, but I still think it is an idea worth considering. Do the richest 1% in this country consider themselves too privileged and special to allow women and other races into their ranks. It sure looks like it.

Executive Salaries Are Way Out Of Line

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has been keeping up with the economic news that corporate executive salaries and compensation are way out of line, especially when compared to the salaries of workers in the same company. And it does not seem to matter whether those executives are successful or not. Those who oversee company failures make millions of dollars -- even the ones who are forced out of their jobs (but you can bet that no ordinary company worker is given any "golden parachute").

One would think that a company that has had to lay off thousands of workers (a sure sign the company is having trouble) would also cut the salaries of the executives running those companies. But that has not happened. In fact, it's beginning to look like those workers were laid off so the executives could keep their enormous salaries.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in their annual report on executive compensation, the "CEOs of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crises took home nearly $12 million on average in 2009." These companies laid off 531,363 people while reporting a 44% average profit increase in 2009.

But whether a company is in trouble or not, corporate executive salaries have been skyrocketing while the salaries of workers have been depressed by those same executives. The IPS says:

"[A]fter adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century.

American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages than they took home in the 1970s."

There is no logical reason for executive salaries to rise that much while worker salaries have gone down. All employees are valuable to the success of a company (or they wouldn't be working for the company). Why shouldn't worker salaries rise at the same rate as executive salaries? Shouldn't all company employees, regardless of rank, share in the company success they helped to create?

Another way of looking at the outlandish salaries of American corporate executives is to compare them to the salaries of Japanese corporate executives -- a country where corporations have been exceptionally successful. According to the IPS, American executives make 263 times the average compensation of their workers (up from 30 to 1 in the 1970's). Note that is the average compensation, not the minimum compensation of workers. In comparison, Japanese executives make only 16 times as much as their average worker.

Many American corporations would like for us to believe they have to pay these outrageous salaries to executives while laying off workers and depressing worker salaries. They claim they could not get top executive talent otherwise. That's simply a giant load of horse manure! The Japanese don't seem to have any trouble attracting good executives. Their corporations are performing at least as well (and sometimes better) than American corporations.

Don't get me wrong. Japanese executives are well paid for their efforts. But so are their workers. They simply believe that all employees should share in a corporation's success, and not just the executives. And that formula has worked well for them and created a company loyalty among all employees -- a loyalty that furthers the success of the company.

American executives have simply abandoned the idea of fair treatment of their workers. They have bought into the "greed is good" philosophy and are grabbing every dollar they can -- even if they have to abuse their own workers to do it. This is not just unfair, but has been a big contributing factor to the huge income disparity in America between the top 5% and everyone else, setting up the conditions for our current recession (and future recessions if it is not fixed).

Since it has become obvious that corporate executives and corporate boards are either unable or unwilling to rein in corporate salaries (and institute a more equitable and reasonable worker-to-executive salary ratio), the federal government should step in and place a limit on that worker-to-executive salary ratio. What that ratio should be can be debated, but it is necessary to put a limit on it. It is necessary for the health of the overall economy.

I know that many will scream that is "income redistribution" and income redistribution is bad -- some would even label it as socialism. What these people fail to realize (or are unwilling to admit) is the fact that income is being redistributed every day in America (and in all countries under all economic systems). The problem is that in our largely de-regulated capitalist system this money is being redistributed from workers and ordinary citizens to the richest among us, creating a wildly unbalanced and unhealthy income and wealth distribution.

I'm sure this limiting of worker-to-executive pay ratio will be fought by the corporate interests. That is because they are today only interested in short-term profits, and not the long-term health of the country and their companies. The truth is that the corporations would benefit from a more equitable income distribution as much as workers would. While they might have to pay their own workers more, they would reap the benefits of all the nation's workers having more money to spend -- which means more money to buy the corporate products.

"Income redistribution" is not a bad thing. It happens every day. It just needs to happen in the right way -- a way that would be positive for everyone.

American Airlines Still Doesn't Understand

I have to wonder about the leadership at American Airlines. Do they not understand the rank-and-file employees are the backbone of the company, or do they just not care as long as they can feed millions of dollars into their own bank accounts. Maybe it's both.

Back in 2003, the airline was in trouble and the employees came to its rescue. They agreed to take paycuts to keep the airline afloat. They thought these cuts would just be temporary, and once the airline was again making money their salaries would be reinstated. They were wrong.

It seems the airline's top management had a different idea. The airline has made hundreds of millions of dollars the last couple of years, but there has not even been a discussion of whether to restore the paycuts of line employees.

Meanwhile, top management has rewarded themselves handsomely. Here is the compensation given to the airline's top five leaders:

Gerard Arpey, CEO, $6.6 million
Tom Horton, CFO, $2.8 million
Dan Garton, executive vice president of marketing, $2.8 million
Robert Reding, senior vice president of technical operations, $2.6 million
Gary Kennedy, general counsel, $1.7 million

In addition, this last week over $38 million in bonuses was given out to the airline's top executive and managers. Last year, even larger bonuses were awarded to these same people. It seems strange that while workers are still working for partial salaries, the management are rewarding themselves with millions in bonuses.

Evidently, the management thinks they are the only important people in the company -- the only ones worthy of sharing in the companies good fortunes. Someone needs to remind them that there wouldn't even be a company except for the sacrifice in pay by the employees. And there wouldn't be any profit except for the hard work and dedication of the employees.

Hard-working and dedicated employees could help the company turn a profit even with second-rate management. But the best managers in the world could not turn a profit with poorly performing employees. The airline's leaders need to understand who's doing the hard work that earns profits and repeat customers (and it isn't management).

Not a single dollar in management bonuses should have been awarded until the salaries of employees had been fully restored. These management bonuses were a slap in the face to the employees.