(Bloomberg News circulated the following on April 19, 2011.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Chief executive officers at 299 U.S. companies had combined compensation of $3.4 billion in 2010, enough to pay more than 102,000 workers, the AFL-CIO labor federation reported in a study.
CEOs at companies including Viacom Inc. (VIA/B) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL) averaged $11.4 million in total compensation in 2010, according to the report, which used data from website salary.com. Viacom’s CEO Philippe P. Dauman earned $84.5 million last year, the highest among the executives, according to the report.
“The disparity between CEO and workers’ pay has continued to grow to levels that are completely stunning,” union President Richard Trumka said today at a Washington news conference. He said the U.S. is facing “runaway CEO pay.”
The AFL-CIO, with 12.2 million members, has led U.S. labor unions in criticizing the compensation of executives. Trumka was at the head of a march on Wall Street last year to demand taxes on the bonuses of executives at banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), the fifth-biggest U.S. bank.
The average pay for CEOs of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is enough to cover the salaries of 28 U.S. presidents or more than 700 minimum-wage workers, according to the report. The combined compensation would support 102,325 jobs paying the median wage of all workers, the group said.
The AFL-CIO took aim at payments for departing executives called golden parachutes, corporate jet travel, preferential pensions and perks unrelated to performance.
The full story is at www.bloomberg.com.