I love how people are quick to condemn those who make more money for a job than they do.
But I would bet that NO ONE here would balk or feel bad if their employer offered them a big bonus and a bigger paycheck.
Companies have the right to pay heir employees what they feel is appropriate, based on their value to the company.
Line workers are a dime a dozen.
People who can make big money for a company are harder to find and therefore get better wages.
I wish I were a CEO. But I am just a lo-end peon. I never made it to CEO. Probably won't either. But I understand why that is and am not bitter...even when sometimes it seems "unfair". But there is NO SUCH THING as "fair".
Unions preach "fairness"....just like the Occupy people. "Everyone deserves a piece of the pie."
Maybe, but who decides on the SIZE of the piece of the pie?
Dig a little and see who provided backing for many of the Occupy groups.
Not all unions are bad...and in some situations unions have stood up for what is right. Especially when it comes to safety and health issues.
But in many situations, unions forget that the reason companies are in business is to MAKE BIG PROFITS. Not to share.
We all have the right to work wherever we want, based on what we can make doing what we know how to do.
We do NOT have the right to force anyone to pay us more than the market will support.
Another thing to consider: Everyone is quick to condemn the "fat cat CEOs". Well, I worked for a union 20 years ago and I can tell you first hand that the $200 lunches and staff cars and big salaries for little work is VERY much the norm at many union headquarters. Unions are run JUST like businesses.
The one I worked for had a "scab" policy....only union workers could work a union plant! Well, what the union never told its membership is that MANY of the workers at the headquarters were contractors, working day to day because they did not want to hire a union person for the role! I know because I was that contractor. They worked me day-to-day and I got paid half what a union-paid person in that role would have made. I was OK with it. But would the membership have been ok with it?
So there is good and bad.
Common sense has to come into play. Its a different world and everyone who works an assembly line or bags groceries cant expect to have a pension for 25 years after he/she retires from the line. That business model worked decades ago but is no longer doable.
When a company is no longer making the profit it wants to make, why should it stay in business?
If your employer comes to you today and says "we need you to make one third your pay", do you stay and work happily or look elsewhere?
The union gambled and the company called its bluff.
If you REALLY want a pension and big $$$, figure out how to BE a ceo or build your own business. Or be in politics. That is where the REAL money is...and its ruining America....yet people keep condemning CEOs.
The idea of "everyone should share equally" is exactly why our country is as messed up as it is.
Just one idiot's opinion....