A month or so ago I saw a page on the web in which some
group (perhaps a union) complained that CEOs made x times
what the average worker did, and then asked, are they
really worth x of us?  (x was some fairly bogus number from
the late 90s stock bubble, possibly about 400)  Can you
find this page for me?

---

Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 28 Mar 2004 10:51 PST

Hi bugbear,

I have been researching your question for several hours now and have
located many articles written about how many more times a CEO earns
than the average worker.

Please take a look at this and see if it seems familiar:

"These days, it is not uncommon for CEO's to be awarded bonuses and
stock potions that reach eight digits.
How can this happen? Can one person really be worth as much as all of
a company's middle managers or hourly workers combined?"

However, in the article the above excerpt is taken from, there is no
mention of how many times a CEO makes more than the average worker.


Are there any other details you remember about this article? Anything,
no matter how small, will help in this search. Thanks.

Regards,
Rainbow~

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Clarification of Question by bugbear-ga on 28 Mar 2004 11:07 PST

There are certainly a huge number of pages on the subject.
But there was one, specifically, that asked "are they 
worth x of us?"  That's the one I'm hoping to find.

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Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 28 Mar 2004 12:15 PST

Hi bugbear,

Does this seem familiar to you?

"Think about it. Our CEO made 102 times what the average bookseller
made last year in pay and bonuses alone -- let's not mention his
fortune in stock. And the situation was the same throughout the upper
echelons of the company...
...But is anyone worth 102 of you?"

Rainbow~

---

Clarification of Question by bugbear-ga on 28 Mar 2004 12:57 PST

That's good, but it was not that one.  It was about CEOs
in general, not a specific company.

---

Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 28 Mar 2004 14:23 PST

Hi bugbear,

After an extensive search, I have been unable to locate the specific
article you are seeking.

This is the closest I could find:
 
http://booksellersunion.org/employee.htm

Hopefully another researcher will have better luck.

Regards,
Rainbow~

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 28 Mar 2004 17:01 PST

Any of these ring a bell:



http://www.wsws.org/public_html/iwb4-21/lead.htm

According to the capitalist marketplace, Lawrence Coss is "worth" as
much as 5,000 workers. How, then, can their political equality be more
than a legal fiction?

-----

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/11/25/1626250.shtml?tid=99

And with no expensive managers left to pay, maybe our CEOs can finally
get payed what their worth: 1000 times the average workers pay,
instead of only 4 or 500. [aflcio.org]

-----

http://www.scn.org/arts/realpoetik/Zant-Frank-van-00.htm

CEOs are CEOs because they?re always right,
worth 1000 times what workers are worth.
Therefore, I?m now thankful
for the $ I don?t earn
because I would just spend it anyway.

-----

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:q5Fnv3GtXysJ:www.e-thepeople.org/article/19905/view%3Fviewtype%3Dbest%26skip%3D10+ceo++%22worth+*****+employees%22+site:org&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

But if you believe that, I have a bridge for sale in which you might be interested.

Nobody is worth more than thousands of their employees combined - I'm
sorry, I don't buy it.

-----

Possibly:

"But the issue goes beyond whether the contribution that the two men
made to the company was worth tens of thousands times more than that
of the average worker."
http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=48805

I found this in an article titled "Corporate greed makes America great": 

"If the CEO of the corporation you work for makes 400 times what you
do, it's because he or she -- well, OK, probably he -- is worth 400
times what you are. He is 400 times smarter than you, 400 times better
educated, works 400 times harder and, let's face it, is 400 times more
valuable to the company. You and I can be replaced at lower wages by
hard-working illegal immigrants who appreciate how lucky they are just
to be in this country, even without health insurance."

That this was said in an ironic way is made clear by this later paragraph:

"Think you should get more money because you work hard and obey the
rules? Think CEOs should make less money when they manage poorly or
misbehave? That's called 'redistribution of wealth,' and it's
un-American. Of course, when your employer asks for employee pay
concessions or givebacks, that's not redistribution of wealth. Poor
people don't have wealth. That's why they're poor!"

http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20040128sam110col2p1.asp

"...if you really want to see the difference between hamburger and
filet mignon, compare the average worker's pay to that of CEOs at 365
of the largest public companies. These denizens of one of the last
nearly all-male enclaves on earth averaged $13.1 million in 2000,
roughly 531 times more than their average employees...

Even if a CEO is a brilliant strategist, an inspiring leader, and the
darling of Wall Street, what makes him worth 531 times his average
employee instead of 50 or 100 or 200 times?"

http://yahoo.businessweek.com/careers/content/apr2001/ca2001049_100.htm