CORPORATE GREED

The Center For American Progress Action Fund 

THE PROGRESS REPORT

ECONOMY -- EXXON MOBIL SET TO ANNOUNCE RECORD PROFITS: With oil prices just down from their all-time high and many analysts fearing a recession, Exxon Mobil is planning to announce next week that it has broken its own record for "the most money ever made by a company in U.S. history." Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, is expected to rack in over $39 billion in 2007 profits, "which breaks down to the company earning about $75,000 a minute." Exxon Mobil is by no means the only oil behemoth to turn high oil prices into record profits. Earlier this week, ConocoPhillips announced a 37 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit, "even as the third-largest U.S. oil company produced less crude and natural gas than a year earlier." Fourth-quarter oil prices were over 50 percent higher than a year ago, "prompting forecasts for more eye-popping earnings from oil majors." 

Sent By:  Jim Coleman

USW Communications Department

5 Gateway Center, #802

Pittsburgh, PA

Sunlight often is the best disinfectant when it comes to curbing abuses of executive compensation. Although companies are required to file documents describing their executives’ compensation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), these often are difficult for shareholders to understand. In recent CEO pay scandals, even boards of directors have claimed they were kept in the dark.

As executive pay continues to spiral upward, the SEC is considering updating and improving its pay disclosure rules. Unless an executive compensation consultant is hired to crunch the numbers, it is nearly impossible for investors to determine how much their executives are paid. For example, CEO pension benefits are poorly disclosed under the current rules, and CEOs take advantage of that fact to fatten their retirement pay.

The SEC is proposing new CEO pay disclosure rules in the first rule update since 1992. The SEC proposal will require companies to disclose executive compensation data in “plain English.” In addition, for the first time companies will be required to provide a dollar estimate of their executive’s pension benefits, as well as a “grand total” compensation figure. These changes will go a long way to make CEO pay more transparent and clear.

The SEC can and should go further in its proposed rule making. The biggest concern of investors is that CEO pay is not linked to performance. However, the proposed SEC rule does not require companies to disclose performance targets. Instead, companies can avoid telling their shareholders this information for “competitive reasons.” This lack of disclosure is unfair to shareholders, who, as the company owners, have a right to know.

By setting a new standard in how compensation is reported, the SEC can help investors better compare executive pay with company performance. But until the SEC requires companies to disclose the numerical targets that CEOs are being measured against, the executive compensation system will continue to be a “black box.” Executive pay reform will only happen when shareholders are allowed to see how CEO pay is set.

Urge the SEC to support CEO pay reform.

L. Pendleton Siegel
Chief Executive Officer
Potlatch Corporation

In 2005, L. Pendleton Siegel raked in $1,106,602 in total compensation including stock option grants* from Potlatch Corporation.

From previous years' stock option grants, the Potlatch Corporation executive cashed out $1,584,734 in stock option exercises.

And L. Pendleton Siegel has another $2,090,659 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

How You Compare to Your CEO

These values are calculated with
an annual salary of $39,000

L. Pendleton Siegel's compensation could support 28 workers earning your salary.

You would have to work 28 years to equal L. Pendleton Siegel's 2005 compensation. You'd better get working, because you can't take a vacation until 2034 A.D.

See How Other Workers Compare to Your CEO

How long would it take to equal L. Pendleton Siegel's total compensation for 2005?

A Nobel prize winner would have to work until 2007 A.D. An average university president would have to work until 2009 A.D. The President of the United States would have to work until 2008 A.D. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney would have to work until 2010 A.D. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would have to work until 2016 A.D. An average worker would have to work until 2049 A.D. A minimum-wage earner would have to work until 2109 A.D.

	Print E-mail

PayWatch Fact Sheet   L. Pendleton Siegel Chief Executive Officer Potlatch Corporation 2005 Compensation Salary $645,050 Bonus $397,500 Long-Term Incentive Payoffs $0 Restricted Stock Awards $0 Other Compensation $64,052 Value of Stock Option Grants* $0 Total 2005 Compensation Plus Stock Option Grants $1,106,602 Compensation from Prior Stock Option Grants** Value of Options Exercised in 2005 $1,584,734 Value of Exercisable Options $2,090,659 Value of Unexercisable Options $0 * Black Scholes present value model as estimated by The Corporate Library. ** Not counted in 2005 compensation totals. Source: The Corporate Library     CEO-to-Worker Comparisons Annual Weekly Daily Hourly Per Minute L. Pendleton Siegel $1,106,602 $21,280 $4,256 $532 $8 Minimum-Wage Worker $10,712 $206 $41 $5.15 $0.09 Average Worker $25,501 $490 $98 $12.26 $0.20 President of the U.S.A. $400,000 $7,692 $1,538 $192 $3.21   How Many Years to Equal L. Pendleton Siegel's 2005 Compensation? Minimum-Wage Worker 103 years Completion Date 2109 A.D. Average Worker 43 years Completion Date 2049 A.D. President of the U.S.A. 5 years Completion Date 2011 A.D.   How Many Workers Equal L. Pendleton Siegel's Compensation? Minimum-Wage Worker 103 workers Average Worker 43 workers President of the U.S.A. 5 presidents

---

The CEO Shopping Cart

In 2005, L. Pendleton Siegel bagged $1,106,602 at Potlatch Corporation. Here's what L. Pendleton Siegel could buy if he went on a shopping spree...

Health insurance for 537 uninsured workers. Day care for one year for 272 working mothers. 42 average workers could upgrade their part-time jobs with no benefits to full-time jobs with benefits. 967 workers could be enrolled in pension plans.

Source: The Corporate Library

* Black Scholes present value model as estimated by The Corporate Library or as reported in the company's proxy statement.

June 27, 2006

FROM THE UNITED STEELWORKERS PRESS ASSOCIATION

The Labor Department’s Anti-Worker Agenda

Now that the ties between the Bush administration’s Department of Labor and the anti-worker Center for Union Facts have been established, let’s take a look at the Labor Department’s original mission and compare it with its current operations.

On Thursday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) posted 108 pages of documents it received through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that showed the Labor Department’s “supportive” ties with Berman.

U.S. employers never liked the nation’s Department of Labor. And they liked it a lot less when it reached cabinet-level status in 1913, which indicated to Big Business that workers for the first time had a voice in government.

And after all, that was the point. Employers had all the money and means to dictate at the workplace. Shouldn’t workers have an advocate as well?

But as Jordan over at Confined Space points out, the Bush administration has distorted the original goal of the department.

In the words of the organic act establishing the Department of Labor, its main purpose is “to foster, promote and develop the welfare of working people, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.” (From the Official History of the U.S. Department of Labor.)

Now, Jordan writes, the mission more accurately should be rewritten as follows:

In the words of the organic act establishing the Department of Labor, its main purpose is “to foster, promote and develop the welfare of working people corporate America, to improve their working conditions ability to stay union free, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.”

As Ed Sills at the Texas AFL-CIO points out:

The National Labor Relations Act states in its preamble that it is the
national policy of the U.S. to encourage collective bargaining. Now there is
proof that the U.S. Department of Labor does not encourage collective
bargaining and is consorting with those who would destroy it.

Richard Berman, whose projects have included slamming Mothers Against Drunk Driving in a vicious campaign on behalf of the alcohol industry, launched the center in February. For his latest industry front group, Berman has launched a website that purports to show the “facts” on unions but instead provides twisted distortions.

Berman is spending his multimillion budget on full-page anti-union ads published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers. Berman also has taken out TV ads in local markets where actors dressed as workers attack unions, but those ads ceased airing after CREW contacted stations to point out their falsehoods.

Berman huffs and puffs about union “transparency,” neglecting to mention that only 10 percent of corporations file some financial information with the Federal Election Commission. Meanwhile, all unions are required to file their financial information with the Labor Department, where it is publicly available. But Berman isn’t saying who’s funding his organization, which sources say has an $8 million bankroll. But it’s clear there a political agenda. And it isn’t in favor of working families.

Leo Casey on EdWize notes CREW’s FOIA documents show

…considerable supporting evidence for the thesis that the Bush administration and its corporate bank-rollers have targeted teacher unions for political reasons, on the theory that weakened teacher unions would mean a weakened Democratic coalition.



by Tula Connell

tags: Richard Berman, Center for Union Facts, National Labor Relations Act, Department of Labor, Bush, bargaining, freedom to form unions 

Workers On the Slag Heap of History

By David Sirota - Daily News - Philladephia

 http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/14174641.htm

IN AGES PAST, cities in wealthy nations greeted visitors with gold-plated lions at their gates.

 But today, in America , the richest country on earth, the gates of many towns welcome visitors with abandoned factories. And the communities these factories flank tell you more about what's really destroying America than any Wall Street analyst or Washington policy wonk ever could.

 Since leaving the Philadelphia area, I've learned firsthand that these Anytown, USAs are everywhere - not just on the East Coast. One of them can be found by driving north through the shimmering cattle pastures on Montana Route 12, right near where I now live. There, you'll be welcomed to East Helena by two defunct gray smokestacks rising from giant black mounds of what looks like spent coffee grounds, but is in reality industrial slag.

 The towers, piercing an otherwise pristine Rocky Mountain vista, tell a story being told throughout America - a story not just of abandonment but of legalized theft afflicting both urban centers, and yes, small-town outposts.

  East Helena 's plant was once a lead smelter, owned by Asarco.

 In 1999, the company was bought by Grupo Mexico . That international conglomerate is headed by Larrea Mota-Velasco, listed as a billionaire by /Forbes/ magazine's "The World's Richest People" in 2001. Within two years of the takeover, Grupo Mexico shut the smelter down, costing East Helena more than 200 jobs.

 If the story ended there, it would be just another tale about the brutal consequences of globalization on blue-collar America . But what happened after is what should instill fear in millions of workers, urban or rural, blue or white collar.

 In 2003, the company hiked health-care premiums for retirees. Executives claimed the company was under financial duress and that it thus "reserves the right to amend or terminate the plans at any time for any reason... even after you retire."

 Retirees were forced to accept the increases while a lawsuit dragged into 2004. That was the same year Asarco's corporate parent reported more than a quarter-billion in profits in the fourth quarter alone - yet the company refused to back down.

 Last year and this year, it has been more of the same. The company began delaying disability checks to retirees, property tax payments to the budget-strapped East Helena schools and cleanup operations at the smelter.

 Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, the company pressed a three-year wage freeze and reductions in pension and medical benefits for its workers in Arizona . These moves came as Grupo Mexico reported profits of more than $1 billion in 2005.

 "The community worked really hard to understand and deal with the layoffs," said Bob Pyfer, 56, who grew up in East Helena . "But when you hear about those profits and the company's treatment of its retirees, it just makes you angry."

 Pyfer's grandfather came to East Helena from Slovenia in the 1920s for a job at the smelter, where he worked for 40 years. Pyfer grew up working summers at the smelter, too. Now a lawyer, he sees a disturbing trend that goes way beyond one hamlet.

 "These workers, like others all over, gave their lives to their company and they incurred serious health risks along the way," he said. "That means, at the very least, these companies shouldn't be able to use bankruptcy or reorganization to get out of what it owes to their workers." Being allowed to do that, he said, is "a serious concern whether you live in East Helena or not."

 These reverse Robin Hood tactics are everywhere. At both Delphi and United Airlines, executives have used bankruptcy to enact massive cuts in wages and pensions - while cementing millions of dollars worth of new bonuses for themselves.

 Similarly, GM and Ford are demanding wage and benefit cuts. But, as /BusinessWeek /reported in June 2005, "both GM and Ford still pay a dividend, GM CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr. got a $2.5 million bonus for 2004 on top of his $2.2 million in salary" and "both companies have huge cash hoards - $20 billion at GM and $23 billion at Ford."

 True, these companies have problems. But they are using those problems as an excuse to bilk workers and enrich themselves - and our government is doing nothing to stop them.

 In the 1980s, audiences watching Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" often cheered Michael Douglas's famous "greed is good" speech. After Enron, we stopped cheering, and lawmakers promised to stop corporate abuse. We now know those promises were lies.

 Congress passed class-action "reform" limiting citizens' capacity to fight back against corporate abuse in court, budgets cutting services for displaced workers and a bankruptcy bill allowing courts to rubber-stamp companies' rip-off schemes. Meanwhile, in a recent /Wall Street Journal/ story about pension cuts, the Labor Department said retirees "aren't our constituents anymore."

 So, while East Helena , its rotting Asarco plant and its mistreated retirees may seem far away or isolated, the town's tale is not as distant as you think. Unless our government starts outlawing these heists and forcing profitable multinationals to fulfill their promises to workers, East Helena 's story may soon be coming to a community near you.

David Sirota, a Philadelphia-area native who now lives in Helena , Mont. , is the author of the upcoming "Hostile Takeover" (Crown) about how corporate interests distort public policy.