by Deb Cupples | I'm a fan of Media Matters' Eric Boehlert, because he does his job so well. Yesterday, Mr. Boehlert explained how the New York Times, Businessweek, and other media had started a misleading meme by claiming that the average Detroit autoworker makes $70 per hour (or $140,000 annually based on a 2000-hour year).
Actually, the average line worker makes only $28 per hour (about $56,000 a year) -- which isn't much considering how productive and physically dangerous their jobs are.
Mr. Boehlert suspects that the Times and other media opted to use the inflated pay rate because its a "real eyepopper." The bigger eyepopper is the hourly rate of auto industry executives.
General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner's 2007 pay ($14 million), for example, breaks down to $7,000 per hour. Yes, you read that correctly -- and that was a year that GM had $38 billion in losses.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally's 2007 pay was $21 million, which amounts to $10,500 per hour. A year earlier, Ford had record losses of $12 billion.
It doesn't stop with CEOs. Four of Ford's vice presidents were paid $39 million in 2007, an average of $9.75 million each or $4,875 per hour.
Shareholders should be furious -- as should we taxpayers, who agreed in September to lend the auto industry $25 billion.
Wait! There's even more fuel for outrage. It's not just how much the hundreds of auto-industry executives and managers get paid. It's also the costly perks they enjoy -- like the private jets.
Reportedly, when GM's CEO Richard Wagoner flew to Washington to testify before a congressional committee last week, he took a private jet: a trip that cost GM shareholders $20,000 -- which is nearly three times Mr. Wagoner's hourly pay rate.
I haven't looked into other perks that U.S. automakers give their execs and managers, but it's not uncommon for shareholders to pay for condos, first-class accommodations, huge expense accounts....
When you multiply such expenses by dozens (perhaps hundreds) of execs and managers -- when you add up the expenses year in and year out -- we're talking about serious money that could, instead, be used to save or create non-managerial jobs, which are essential to producing real wealth for automakers.
Like Mr. Boehlert, I find it interesting -- in a most distasteful way -- that some of our nation's media seem to be blaming the auto industry's problems on non-managerial workers instead of on the folks who make company decisions and seemed to have found legal ways to loot said companies.
Memeorandum has commentary.
Other Buck Naked Politics Posts:
* Cutting Executive Pay Would Save Jobs
* Beggars Can Be Choosers: Auto Execs Use Private Planes
* Senate Considers Auto Industry Bailout
* Execs Took Millions While Driving Companies into Ditch
* Lehman Execs Redistribute Shareholder Wealth (to Themselves)
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