Dear America,
Very little is being said about the current labor issues in the news. But both the entertainment industry and the auto manufacturing industry are manifesting in their attitudes toward their workforces the attitude that is effectively putting American capitalism on trial. Don't misunderstand me; I am a capitalist philosophically, but there are limits as to my fealty to the system, and corporate management in these two industries are laying those issues bare. What I mean is that in both striking scenarios, the issue of how much corporate management impunity there should be in divvying up the wealth created by our nation's labor forces in their respective businesses and industries.
To crystallize my point, Robert Iger is the current CEO of Disney, which is no longer just the animated film producer it was when I used to watch the Mickey Mouse Club on television as a child, but is now a gigantic media conglomerate. Iger is in his second stint as top panjandrum at Disney, which he became again after the abysmal failure of his successor, chosen and hired by the very same board of directors that had hired him upon Iger's initial retirement in 2020. That successor, Bob Chapek, took a supportive position toward the "don't say gay" legislation launched by that governmental voice of enlightenment, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and thus ensured that his own limited tenure at Disney would end abruptly. In his wake came Iger again, who was virtually begged to resume his tenure as leading light at Disney. Chapek received a "golden parachute" that would dwarf the life savings of anyone below the management level at Disney in an amount in excess of $20 million, and he got it for doing a lousy, some might say repellant, job. Iger's compensation approximates $34 million, about $10 million more than Chapek got each year for failing. And to Iger's credit, he was at the helm during Disney's rise to entertainment giant and its quintupling in corporate size, but that doesn't necessarily justify his obscene compensation relative to the remuneration received by the writers and actors who produce what Iger sells. It certainly doesn't lend legitimacy to the comment he made about the strikers demands.
When Iger was interviewed on the evening news one day recently, he said that the striking members of the screen actors' and screen writers' union members had to realize that their demands--they are asking for a living wage in a business that is significantly less reliable as a career year to year than the jobs of the vast majority of us--were "unrealistic." That was the considered opinion of a man making a salary that is as unrealistic as salaries get. Mind you, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at just shy of $700 million, and even with a pocket that deep, he could muster the audacity to criticize people for only wanting to know with some reliability that they will be able to pay their mortgages next month. And apparently Iger isn't alone in corporate management. The auto workers' union has reported that the management of the American automobile manufacturing "Big Three" have given themselves raises totaling 42% over the past three years, the duration of the contract now being renegotiated. The union is saying that if management was entitled to 42%, the people who actually built the cars they sold deserve a similar boost in the next three year contract...this after getting only an aggregate of 10% under the old contract in a period in which inflation ran at an annual rate of 9% for a while. The management has upped its offer from another 10% over three years to 15%, and has promised reductions in workforce attendant to the advent of electric automobiles in the bargain. The union characterizes that offer as "insulting."
So there are two examples of the avarice of corporate management in light of the relative penury of the people who actually do the work from which they prosper. I'm not suggesting that there aren't parallel inequities in the realms of socialism and communism, but we should understand that the United States is competing for the subscription of the masses in a world in which authoritarianism and alternate economic systems surround us and seem to be gaining the credence of perhaps billions of people. In other words, the ground swell in the United States of support for the unions in these two examples is a microcosm of what the world at large could look like in a couple of decades if something isn't done to curb executive greed and ensure that the workers get their fair share. It is seldom pointed out that in the 1950's, the average CEO made ten times what the average worker on the assembly line made. Today it is a ratio more like 300 to 400 times. And the wealth disparity between the top .1% and the bottom 50% has grown astronomically. At some point, those who get their hands dirty are going to say enough is enough, or in the case of management, way too much. It isn't just the prosperity of two industries that is at stake, it is our way of life.
Your friend,
Mike
Very little is being said about the current labor issues in the news. But both the entertainment industry and the auto manufacturing industry are manifesting in their attitudes toward their workforces the attitude that is effectively putting American capitalism on trial. Don't misunderstand me; I am a capitalist philosophically, but there are limits as to my fealty to the system, and corporate management in these two industries are laying those issues bare. What I mean is that in both striking scenarios, the issue of how much corporate management impunity there should be in divvying up the wealth created by our nation's labor forces in their respective businesses and industries.
To crystallize my point, Robert Iger is the current CEO of Disney, which is no longer just the animated film producer it was when I used to watch the Mickey Mouse Club on television as a child, but is now a gigantic media conglomerate. Iger is in his second stint as top panjandrum at Disney, which he became again after the abysmal failure of his successor, chosen and hired by the very same board of directors that had hired him upon Iger's initial retirement in 2020. That successor, Bob Chapek, took a supportive position toward the "don't say gay" legislation launched by that governmental voice of enlightenment, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and thus ensured that his own limited tenure at Disney would end abruptly. In his wake came Iger again, who was virtually begged to resume his tenure as leading light at Disney. Chapek received a "golden parachute" that would dwarf the life savings of anyone below the management level at Disney in an amount in excess of $20 million, and he got it for doing a lousy, some might say repellant, job. Iger's compensation approximates $34 million, about $10 million more than Chapek got each year for failing. And to Iger's credit, he was at the helm during Disney's rise to entertainment giant and its quintupling in corporate size, but that doesn't necessarily justify his obscene compensation relative to the remuneration received by the writers and actors who produce what Iger sells. It certainly doesn't lend legitimacy to the comment he made about the strikers demands.
When Iger was interviewed on the evening news one day recently, he said that the striking members of the screen actors' and screen writers' union members had to realize that their demands--they are asking for a living wage in a business that is significantly less reliable as a career year to year than the jobs of the vast majority of us--were "unrealistic." That was the considered opinion of a man making a salary that is as unrealistic as salaries get. Mind you, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at just shy of $700 million, and even with a pocket that deep, he could muster the audacity to criticize people for only wanting to know with some reliability that they will be able to pay their mortgages next month. And apparently Iger isn't alone in corporate management. The auto workers' union has reported that the management of the American automobile manufacturing "Big Three" have given themselves raises totaling 42% over the past three years, the duration of the contract now being renegotiated. The union is saying that if management was entitled to 42%, the people who actually built the cars they sold deserve a similar boost in the next three year contract...this after getting only an aggregate of 10% under the old contract in a period in which inflation ran at an annual rate of 9% for a while. The management has upped its offer from another 10% over three years to 15%, and has promised reductions in workforce attendant to the advent of electric automobiles in the bargain. The union characterizes that offer as "insulting."
So there are two examples of the avarice of corporate management in light of the relative penury of the people who actually do the work from which they prosper. I'm not suggesting that there aren't parallel inequities in the realms of socialism and communism, but we should understand that the United States is competing for the subscription of the masses in a world in which authoritarianism and alternate economic systems surround us and seem to be gaining the credence of perhaps billions of people. In other words, the ground swell in the United States of support for the unions in these two examples is a microcosm of what the world at large could look like in a couple of decades if something isn't done to curb executive greed and ensure that the workers get their fair share. It is seldom pointed out that in the 1950's, the average CEO made ten times what the average worker on the assembly line made. Today it is a ratio more like 300 to 400 times. And the wealth disparity between the top .1% and the bottom 50% has grown astronomically. At some point, those who get their hands dirty are going to say enough is enough, or in the case of management, way too much. It isn't just the prosperity of two industries that is at stake, it is our way of life.
Your friend,
Mike
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