Pay Inequality Web Site Launched by AFL-CIO

The AFL-CIO has moved into cyberspace with a campaign against munificent salaries for America’s chief executives, creating a Web site that invites workers and investors to check out the big boss’ earnings.

Executive PayWatch, the union site launched Thursday, holds data on the pay and stock options for chieftains of the major corporations in the Standard & Poor’s 500. The site includes a built-in calculator to compare salaries of the average worker and the minimum wage workers with the income of corporate moguls.

“Click Here” if you think salaries and bonuses are “out of control,” says the opening page of the site, (https://www.paywatch.org), a creation of the AFL-CIO’s new office of investment.

“At a time when America desperately needs a raise, it is devastating to workers’ morale to realize that they would have to work thousands of years to earn what their CEO takes home every year,” AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Rich Trumka said at a news conference and demonstration of the Web site.

The scale of top executive pay “mocks all the values that hard-working Americans believe in,” he said. “And it widens the already-too-wide disparity between average working families and the wealthiest Americans.”

Median pay for chief executives, including stock options, rose nearly 20% last year, while the wages of average workers climbed 3.3%, according to the AFL-CIO.

PayWatch said its material was obtained from corporate reports and proxy statements.

Among the firms cited is General Electric, where Chairman John Welch received $39.8 million last year in salary, bonus and the value of stock options. This compared with a salary of $24,700 for the average American worker, $11,440 for a minimum-wage worker and $200,000 for President Clinton.

Welch’s compensation was equal to the pay of 3,480 minium-wage workers, 1,612 average workers, or 199 presidents of the United States, according to PayWatch.

Doing the comparison calculations another way, for Gilbert Amelio of Apple Computer, who had a total package of $23.3 million, PayWatch said the average American employee would have to work 945 years to match Amelio’s compensation last year.

The site now has information on 100 companies, and it will be expanded to cover all S&P; 500 firms by the end of the month, said Bill Patterson, director of the AFL-CIO’s office of investment, created in December.

The union’s goal is to get workers and small investors more involved in corporate decision making.

“We are trying to define a role for unions in corporate transactions,” Patterson said. This means worker involvement in decisions made by managers of pension funds and 401(k) funds. Unions also will be involved in raising antitrust issues with federal regulators, he said.

Money going into retirement funds is “employee capital,” and workers should have a voice in how it is invested, Patterson said.

Workers and investors also should be able to check fast-rising executive salaries, which are not justice by performance, he said.