Of course, Wal-mart could care less about whether or not people make a living, much less understand the history of the labor movement in the United States. For example, 11 year olds going on strike for higher wages because they were working 13 hour days, 6 days a week, for less than a quarter a day. We have a federal minimum wage because of that. We also have 8 hour days, 5 days a week because of that, with overtime after 40 hours (Which George Bush happily altered to the detriment of a large segment of the population).
How will the companies afford to pay workers more with raising costs to consumers many have asked. They haven't asked. They've claimed rather vehemently that it can't possibly be done.
Consider this USAToday article:
"CEO salaries and bonuses surged 15% in a year salaries for rank-and-file workers averaged 3.2% gains.
"...many companies gave CEOs large blocks of restricted shares... Among 36% of CEOs receiving them, the median value was $2.9 million.
"More than 90% received fresh stock-option grants, with a median potential value of $23.2 million.
"Nearly one-third pulled in compensation valued at $50 million or more. Even at companies where pay fell, pay packages remained large. PepsiCo CEO Steve Reinemund's pay package fell 62%, but was a still-impressive $76.5 million."
Hmmm. I think these CEO's could afford to pay their lowest level employees $10 to $15 an hour and take a fifty percent pay cut and still maintain quite a healthy standard of living, while increasing the standard of living of thousands under them.
For example in MSN's Money Central:
"The average pay for the top executive at the 200 largest U.S. companies last year was $11.3 million... That's more than 2.5 times the average $4.3 million earned by the top executive at 100 companies in the London Stock Exchange's FTSE 100 Index..."
"Bosses at U.S. businesses with annual sales of about $500 million earned $2.16 million last year. CEOs at similar-size companies in the UK, France and Germany earned $1.2 million, about half as much... In Japan, the typical CEO at this size company made $543,000."
CNN puts some perspective on those numbers:
"...American chief executive salaries have ballooned to more than 170 times the average worker's pay, up from 40 times in the 1970s. In Great Britain, that multiplier is just 22; in Japan, it's 11. The median salary for CEOs of the 100 largest U.S. companies hit $17.9 million in 2005, a 25 percent jump over 2004. Workers got a 3 percent raise."
What's worse is according to the New York Times, CEO salaries "are set by corporate boards, often filled with insiders or friends...nor is pay always linked to performance."
The problem isn't whether the cost of goods and services will go up for everyone, but rather will the companies who offer those goods and services be willing to take a pay cut at the highest echelons so that they can offer a fair wage for employees, competitive prices for consumers, and still make millions of dollars?
