The United Auto Workers union has made CEO pay a central part of their argument for a big worker wage increase.

It’s been a central argument for the United Auto Workers union: If Detroit’s three automakers raised CEO pay by 40% over the past four years, workers should get similar raises.

UAW President Shawn Fain has repeatedly cited the figure, contrasting it with the 6% pay raises autoworkers have received since their last contract in 2019. He opened negotiations with a demand for a similar 40% wage increase over four years, along with the return of pensions and cost of living increases. The UAW has since lowered its demand to a 36% wage increase but the two sides remain far apart in contract talks, triggering a strike.

Fain’s focus on CEO pay is part of a growing trend of emboldened labor unions citing the wealth gap between workers and the top bosses to bolster demand for better pay and working conditions. In June, Netflix shareholders rejected executive pay packages in a nonbinding vote, just days after the Writers Guild of America wrote letters urging investors to vote against the pay proposals, saying it would be inappropriate amid Hollywood’s ongoing strike by writers. The WGA wrote similar letters targeting the executive pay at Comcast and NBCUniversal.

  • Nougat
    9•1 year ago

    Executive pay is notoriously complicated to calculate because so much of it comes in the form of stock grants or stock options. A detailed look at the compensation packages at all three companies shows how the UAW’s claim both overstates and understates reality, depending on the view.

    Seems like a reason to make executive pay less complicated, doesn’t it? Or at least formulate a way to calculate it in a way that makes it easy to compare to hourly and salary employees’ compensation.

  • @[email protected]English
    8•1 year ago

    I mean they’re asking for 10% a year when inflation was just at 18% so like lol. Fuck man it’s not like that’s huge. Of course it sounds big they need to catch back up after years of stagnation.

  • @[email protected]
    8•1 year ago

    Tldr: 40.1% because one of the big 3 had a huge increase but also they all pay worse than average compared to the fortune 500. (almost 2x worse)