GM CEO Mary Barra, who was paid $29 million last year — hundreds of times more than the average GM worker — used a talking point over the weekend that I used to trot out every time a pesky reporter asked me to justify the unjustifiable: the outrageously high amount of money Cigna paid its CEO, especially when so many of our customers were struggling to cover the deductibles we made them pay before their coverage kicked in.
After her "performance based" retort about her outrageously high compensation, the follow up question is to ask who were the ones who led to that high performance.
One has to wonder if one of Barra’s performance metrics should be to find ways to end the transfer of so much of GM’s revenues to Big Insurance — and her own bank account.
So here's the issue with the rhetoric. The CEO isn't at risk. None of them are at risk of going to prison as a result. If they don't meet their targets, they continue on. The people who are taking the risks every single day are the worker bees. A CEO could drop dead tomorrow and the company would continue. Their salaries are as overinflated as their narcissistic egos.
I like this quote: “As Warren Buffet said a few years ago, “GM is a health and benefits company with an auto company attached.” He and others have noted that GM spends more on health care than steel and that Starbucks spends more on health care than coffee beans”
"At GM, the median worker pay was $80,034 in 2022. It would take that worker 362 years to make Barra’s annual compensation. At Ford, where the median pay was $74,691 last year, it would take 281 years."
If median worker pay at Ford is lower than it is at GM, then why would it take so many fewer years less for a Ford worker to make as much as Barra (who is not their boss) than a GM worker -- unless you're talking about how long it would take a Ford worker to make as much as his or her own CEO who, then,presumably, makes less than Barra?
After her "performance based" retort about her outrageously high compensation, the follow up question is to ask who were the ones who led to that high performance.
One has to wonder if one of Barra’s performance metrics should be to find ways to end the transfer of so much of GM’s revenues to Big Insurance — and her own bank account.
(article) Wendell Potter
September 18, 2023
So here's the issue with the rhetoric. The CEO isn't at risk. None of them are at risk of going to prison as a result. If they don't meet their targets, they continue on. The people who are taking the risks every single day are the worker bees. A CEO could drop dead tomorrow and the company would continue. Their salaries are as overinflated as their narcissistic egos.
I like this quote: “As Warren Buffet said a few years ago, “GM is a health and benefits company with an auto company attached.” He and others have noted that GM spends more on health care than steel and that Starbucks spends more on health care than coffee beans”
"At GM, the median worker pay was $80,034 in 2022. It would take that worker 362 years to make Barra’s annual compensation. At Ford, where the median pay was $74,691 last year, it would take 281 years."
If median worker pay at Ford is lower than it is at GM, then why would it take so many fewer years less for a Ford worker to make as much as Barra (who is not their boss) than a GM worker -- unless you're talking about how long it would take a Ford worker to make as much as his or her own CEO who, then,presumably, makes less than Barra?
And what's an MJO?