Lucas,
The ugly disparity between CEO pay and workers’ pay grows wider each year.
In 1982, CEOs were paid 42 times more than the average worker.
Thirty years later, that disparity ballooned to 354 times* more.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s corporate pay disparity rule will help turn the tide by revealing which companies force employees to struggle for scraps while handing out bloated bonuses to affluent executives.
Let the SEC know that you support disclosure of corporate pay disparities.
The SEC is accepting public comments on this rule for a limited time, so be sure to write TODAY.
For more about the rule, read my earlier email, copied below in case you missed it.
Thanks,
Rick
*From The Wall Street Journal: "Corporate Pay: One CEO = 354 Workers"
Lucas,
Do corporate CEOs have no shame?
Yes, actually. Perhaps they do.
Shame is one possible reason executives are trying desperately to kill a new requirement, mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, that corporations disclose pay disparities between CEOs and average workers.
Disclosing corporate pay disparities will discourage lavish CEO pay practices that reward recklessness and greed — and that fueled the 2008 economic crash.
Rein in corporate recklessness: Tell the Securities and Exchange Commission you support disclosure of corporate pay disparities.
The multimillion-dollar payouts that some CEOs receive are thousands of times more than what most workers earn.
Dodd-Frank rule 953(b) — about which the SEC is now seeking comments from the public — would reveal which corporations heap riches upon their executives while squeezing struggling employees.
Of course, no CEOs are telling the public that they are ashamed of such excessive pay.
Instead, their corporate lobbyists make a claim that’s by far even less credible:
They say the math is too difficult.
But any corporate spokesperson claiming with a straight face that a corporation is unable to figure out the median employee salary is either being deliberately misleading or casting serious doubt on the corporation’s other math-doing responsibilities (such as counting up profits or paying taxes).
The math is not too difficult.
And if the CEOs do in fact feel shame when comparing their multimillion-dollar payouts with the amount their middle-income employees earn, the best way to alleviate that shame is to promote better pay equity, not to keep egregious pay disparities a secret.
Send a message to the SEC today.
Tell the SEC you support the disclosure of corporate pay disparities.
Thanks for all you do,
Rick Claypool
Public Citizen’s Online Action Team
action@citizen.org
P.S. Do one more easy thing before you move to the next message in your inbox. Forward this email to five friends, family members, neighbors or colleagues. They’ll appreciate knowing what matters to you. And your voice will be amplified by every person who joins you in taking action.