Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Steel Workers Hit By Another Lockout As CEO Pockets Millions

By MARC McDONALD

AK Steel (which reported 2005 revenues of more than $5.7 billion) has once again locked out 2,700 union workers at its Middletown Works plant in Ohio, after their contract expired.

The company has been trying to reduce the workforce at the plant. It also aims to freeze the workers' existing pension plan and force workers to pick up a greater share of health-care costs, among other demands, according to ABC News.

However, there's one person who doesn't appear to have shared in the pain: AK Steel's CEO James L. Wainscott

According to Salary.com, Wainscott pocketed compensation of $2,292,172 for the fiscal year that ended in 2004. Other top executives don't seem to be doing too shabby either.

The news coverage I've seen of this episode make zero mention of AK Steel executives' hefty pay packages, an issue that's nothing new for this company.

In any case, I believe that all this demonstrates why unions (backed by fair labor laws) are necessary in the first place.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read a study that said on average, American CEOs make 22 times what their counterparts do in Japan and 20 times what their counterparts make in Europe. And when any right-winger tells you that this is just "the American way," be sure to point out that actually, it isn't. American CEOs make vastly more in constant dollars than their predecessors in the U.S. made. In the 1960s, the average U.S. CEO made 40 times what the rank and file workers made. Today, they pocket 700 times what the rank and file makes.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Yeah, you're going to love this little nugget of information: James Wainscott's campaign contributions.

Hint: he likey the bush

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