NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | June 19, 2015 | PAGE 11
CEO pay continues to explode
By Don McIntosh
Associate Editor
The national AFL-CIO has updated its
online feature Executive Paywatch,
which tracks just how high CEO pay
can go. The compensation information
—drawn from reports that publicly-
traded companies are required to file
with the Securities and Exchange Com-
mission (SEC)—is presented in an easy-
to-follow format at aflcio.org/Corpo-
rate-Watch/Paywatch-2015.
In a nutshell: CEO pay continued to
soar in 2014, despite the growing dis-
gust of the peons down below. Within
the S&P 500—the 500 largest compa-
nies whose stock is traded on NASDAQ
and the New York Stock Exchange—
the average CEO was paid 373 times as
much as the average American worker
in 2014. That’s a big jump from 2013,
when CEOs on that list made 331 times
the average American worker.
Executive Paywatch also shows state-
by-state results, listing CEO compensa-
tion for publicly-traded companies that
are headquartered in each state.
Among the 26 Oregon firms listed in
the Russell 3000 (the biggest 3,000),
CEO pay averaged $3.63 million. The
average Oregon worker made $40,386.
And Washington state had a lot more
millionaire bosses: The average CEO
among the 59 firms listed made $16.1
million, while the average Washington
worker made $50,578.
To compute its CEO-to-worker pay
ratios, Executive Paywatch uses figures
for the median worker in the state or the
nation—not the median worker at the
company. Yet it’s been nearly five years
since Congress passed a law requiring
corporations to disclose CEO-to-worker
pay ratios. That requirement was part of
the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and
Consumer Protection Act, which was
passed in 2010 to rein in some of the fi-
nancial abuses that led to the 2008 finan-
cial market crash. But the SEC still has-
n’t implemented the CEO-to-worker
rule. In effect, the executive branch (the
branch of government headed by Barack
Obama) has failed to execute the law.
In March, 58 members of the U.S.
House of Representatives signed a letter
to the chair of the SEC, complaining that
it’s long past the time to finalize the rule.
[Democrats Peter DeFazio of Oregon
and Jim McDermott and Adam Smith of
Washington were among the signers.]
“The current culture of paying CEOs
hundreds of times more than the typical
employees hurts working families, is
detrimental to employee morale, and
goes against what research shows is best
for business,” wrote the members of
Congress.
ONLINE EXTRA
Explore Executive Paywatch at aflcio.org/
Corporate-Watch/Paywatch-2015
BUILDING COMMUNITY
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LABOR REPRESENTED AT PORTLAND PRIDE PARADE: Union kids
hitch a ride aboard the American Federation of Government Employees
(AFGE) jeep at the Portland Pride Parade June 14. Festooned with laven-
der balloons and rainbow-colored signs, the jeep was part of a contin-
gent of marchers that also included the Oregon AFL-CIO, Oregon AF-
SCME Council 75, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757, UNITE HERE,
Teamsters Local 206, National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 82,
the Painters Union,
Oregon Federation of
Nurses and Health Pro-
fessionals, and the Car-
penters.
Oregon
Tradeswomen Inc.,
Health Care for All Ore-
gon, and 15 Now also
took part in the march.