By TEMPLE LI
He stood on the last ferry making its way across the Hudson as people jumped to their deaths and the Twin Towers collapsed. That was during his early years with Bank of New York and over the next eighteen years, he contributed to the growth of this organization as a white collar manager, resulting in incremental increases in salary and responsibilities. This month, he, along with 3,999 other Bank of New York Mellon employees, was laid off—10% of their workforce. How then does the Bank of New York Mellon justify paying the CEO, Charles Scharf, brought on board in 2017, compensation which is approximately 345 times the median employee, according to the AFL-CIO’s 2018 Executive Paywatch? The same report shows income inequality between CEO’s in the S&P 500 index companies and their median employees grew from 347 to 1 in 2016 to 361 to 1 in 2017.
In 2018 U.S. Bank laid off 1% of its staff, while GM has begun its lay-off of 4,000 white collar employees. Charles Payne of Fox Business Network has expressed his concerns related to companies’ decisions to reduce staff during a period of “record earnings.” These white collar workers should be “no brainer” supporters of capitalism. But the massive lay-offs within their ranks and the growing disparity between top management and the average employees’ salaries are fodder for those who are promoting socialism in the United States. These white collar employees in private industry need only to look at their white collar brothers in government, whose jobs are protected by unions, to start thinking twice about their allegiance to capitalism..
The “Barbarians are at the Gate” Big Business needs to wake up to the fact that “he” is “they” and “they” can turn into a powerful voting block , altering the course of government and history, with the “American Experiment” blowing up in its capitalistic face. Just sayin……
Temple Li is the news editor for Empire State News, where she frequently authors her own editorials (just because she feels like it). She graduated at the top of her class at a mediocre college, infuriating her professors with her conservative wit and sultry charm. Empire State News allows Ms. Li to make a living, and to have a platform to tell people what she thinks. What could be better than that?
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