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Teamsters’ Fight Against Excessive CEO Pay Gets Boost in Congress
The Teamsters for years have been at the forefront of pushing back on excessive CEO pay, including the absurd amount of money XPO CEO Bradley Jacobs hauls in while his employees struggle to pay for health insurance.
Last month, lawmakers on Capitol Hill rolled out the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, which would impose tax rate increases on companies with CEO-to-median-worker pay rates greater than 50-to-1. Penalties would begin with a 0.5 percent corporate rate tax increase for those at the lower end, rising to a five percent increase for companies with a ratio greater than 500-to-1. The tax is expected to raise $150 billion over 10 years.
“It is unjust and unacceptable that the CEOs of major corporations are making an average of 287 times more than their average worker – with some CEOs making upwards of 1000 times more,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a lead sponsor of the measure. “The Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act will incentivize companies to reduce the CEO-worker pay gaps and pay their workers the wages they deserve. Because if companies can afford to pay their CEOs tens of millions of dollars, they can afford to raise wages for their employees.”
The legislation, which is also sponsored by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is seen as an essential step in pushing back against excessive executive compensation, and would apply to all private and publicly held companies earning $100 million or more in annual revenue. The U.S. Treasury Department would be charged with issuing rules to prevent corporate tax avoidance as well to require privately held companies to make their pay ratio data public.
Several Teamster employers have been guilty of such a pay disparity, including Jacobs’ pay, which exceeds workers 361:1.
In recent years, Jacobs received $20 million mega-equity in 2016 and then another grant worth $24.3 million in 2018 which led to an eye popping 1,708% increase in compensation, while workers are denied affordable health care, have no retirement security and the company is stomping on their federally protected rights to form their union.
Workers have demanded a meeting with Jacobs, but Jacobs continues to refuse to meet over serious issues with workers.