|
Well, earlier this afternoon, but, since it's past midnight, I have to say yesterday.
The editor called me later today, and confirmed it will be printed, and should be in today's edition.
I'll post the letter in it's entirety, when it runs. I'm only hoping it will wake a few people up!
My letter was basically about the unfair levels of compensation received by CEO's.
Specifically, I targetted a local company, because the paper had just printed an article to the effect that the CEO of said company had seen a 231 percent increase in his compensation in 2004, a year in which said company LOST $285 million!
I posed the question of whether the 600 employees of this corporation had collectively seen their compensation rise as much as the CEO saw his compensation rise INDIVIDUALLY.
I further pointed out that corporations are busy poormouthing, as an excuse to cut jobs by downsizing and outsourcing...are busily cutting pensions, benefits, and salaries for workers, all while the CEO sees HIS compensation rise 231 percent, to 17.8 million dollars.
I also said that I bet the only thing the employees saw rise 231 percent was the price they pay at the pump to get back and forth to work every day!
I don't know about the rest of you, but it literally DISGUSTS me that this unfair compensation gap continues to go unchallenged. And this gap keeps widening.
When will the corporate moguls learn that they ought dance with the people who brought them...and start sharing the wealth a little bit? We workers aren't asking for anything more than a fair shake here.
What's wrong with a law that requires a CEO to make, in total compensation, no more than, say 50 times what his lowest-paid employee makes? Therefore, if a CEO wants to make a million, his lowest-paid employee better be making $20,000. And if that CEO wants to make 2 million, then that lowest-paid employee oughta be making $40,000. This is NOT unreasonable.
What IS unreasonable is that families are having to tighten their belts ever-tighter as the price of everything from gasoline to heating fuel, to housing skyrockets...while wages fail to keep up - forcing families to make choices like "do I eat or heat the house this week?" "do we eat, or take the kids to the dentist this week?"
No one who works an honest 40-hour week should have to be making choices like that! And it is high time we collectively stood up to THE MAN and told him so!
|