Workers deserve a free choice, Wal-Mart, CEO Lee Scott took in more than $30 million

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6150326.html

By ELISEO MEDINA Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Dec. 6, 2008, 9:10AM

How much more pay should a CEO at a company get than the employees? Ten times more? Fifty times? A hundred?

With our economy in deep trouble and many families' hopes for a secure and stable middle class life slipping further and further out of reach, it's not just a question for Trivial Pursuit.

In America today, average CEO pay is 344 times higher than average worker pay. At Wal-Mart, CEO Lee Scott took in more than $30 million in total compensation last year — about $15,000 an hour for the CEO compared to about $10 an hour for the average Wal-Mart employee.

So it's good to be the king, right?

The problem is it's not good for our country. Not when success isn't shared and the result is an economy that saps strength and prosperity from the workers — the consumers who are the lifeblood of economic growth and vibrancy.

People are working harder — productivity is up nearly 20 percent from 2000 to 2006. Yet last year real median household income was $1,175 less than it was in 2000, and the average family spent more than $4,600 more for basic expenses like gas, mortgage, food, health care, appliances and phone. So now the average household carries thousands of dollars in credit card debt and in the past year nearly 1 million people have lost their homes to foreclosure.

FULL story at link.

[EV_Ares]

1. Where is this going to stop? They can't even give their workers decent health

care. After some states finally took them to court, that helped some. This company has supposedly locked employees in to keep them working. Didn't pay o/t, low wages anyway and the list goes on and on about this company.

K&R.