Outsourcing
Results in Even Higher Inequality
From the AFL-CIO’s Executive PayWatch
CEO pay for major U.S. companies continues to soar as income
inequality and outsourcing of good-paying American jobs increases.
Outsourcing has become a hot presidential election topic with
candidates calling out corporations who say they need to save money by sending
jobs overseas.
Meanwhile, according to the new AFL-CIO
Executive PayWatch, the average CEO of
an S&P 500 company made $12.4 million per year in 2015 – 335 times more
money than the average rank-and-file worker.
The Executive PayWatch website, the most comprehensive
searchable online database tracking CEO pay, showed that in 2015, the average
production and nonsupervisory worker earned approximately $36,900 per year, a
wage that when adjusted for inflation, has remained stagnant for 50 years.
“The income inequality that exists in this country is a
disgrace. We must stop Wall Street CEOs from continuing to profit on the backs
of working people,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Mondelez International, highlighted in this year’s PayWatch,
represents one of the most egregious examples of CEO-to-worker pay inequality.
The company, which makes Nabisco products including Oreos, Chips
Ahoy and Ritz Crackers, announced earlier this year that in order to
reduce costs, it is sending 600 family-sustaining jobs from Illinois to Mexico,
where workers face poor labor and safety standards.
Mondelez CEO Irene Rosenfeld made $19.7 million in 2015 – that’s
$9,471.15 per hour.
“It seems that hard work doesn’t matter anymore. This is the
corporate attitude,” said Mary Willis, who was among hundreds of Nabisco
workers from the South Side of Chicago laid off in March. “They quit me. I
didn’t quit them. It used to be that places like Nabisco were proud places to
work, but now workers like me are tossed to the curb despite years of
dedication.”
While the trend of companies putting profits over people is
rampant, working people are fighting back. The AFL-CIO has endorsed the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco
Workers and Grain Millers' International Union (BCTGM) boycott of Nabisco
products made in Mexico.
Working families also are joining striking Verizon workers on
the picket lines fighting for a fair contract. Verizon wants to ship more good
jobs overseas, outsource work to low-wage contractors and transfer workers away
from their families for months at a time, provoking the strike by 39,000
working men and women who help make it so profitable.
Over the past three years, Verizon has made a record $39 billion
in profits. In 2015, CEO Lowell McAdam made $18.3 million – 498 times the
average pay of a rank and file worker.
More information about United Technologies, Mondelez and
Verizon’s massive CEO-to-worker pay disparity and inequality among S&P 500
companies can be found at www.paywatch.org.
Contact: Carolyn Bobb (202) 637-5018
