Wowza, New CEO Pay Numbers‏

Dear Peter,

Do Something About It Just as passing the Employee Free Choice Act is central to securing the economic future of America's working families, so is ensuring that our financial markets are regulated. Take action today and tell Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairs of the House Finance Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, that we're counting on them to draft legislation that truly strengthens our financial regulations and begins curing the disease that has infected our economic system.

In 2008, CEOs and other executives responsible for our current financial crisis pocketed millions of dollars from bonuses and golden parachutes, while our government spent billions of our dollars bailing out their companies.

Vikram S. Pandit, CEO of Citigroup Inc., received more than $38 million in total compensation in 2008, the same year his company took $50 billion in U.S. taxpayer money.

To shed light on executive pay, the AFL-CIO released Executive PayWatch 2009 earlier today. In this report, we learn that CEO perks alone grew in 2008 to an average of $336,248—or nine times the median salary of a full-time worker.

This comprehensive report includes much more information, including:

• Detailed CEO compensation data for some of the country's largest companies.
• Tools that allow you to compare your pay to the CEOs.
• Close-up case studies focusing on 10 executive compensation practices that define a broken system that leaves the American taxpayer holding the bag.
• The anatomy of a double standard: Executives enjoy job and retirement security while fighting the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers to form unions and bargain for basic security.
• Action for you to take to put balance back into our economy.
• Boot the CEO, a satisfying online game.

Outrageous executive pay is a symptom of a disease that has infected our entire economic system. It is a disease of greed and corruption made worse by the Bush administration’s obsession with further deregulating Wall Street and ideological aversion to oversight and accountability in our financial system.

Check out Executive PayWatch 2009 today and pass it around to your family and friends. It’s time to shed light on outrageous executive compensation, particularly while America’s working families are bearing the brunt of the worst economic crisis in our country since the Great Depression.

In Solidarity,

Marc Laitin
AFL-CIO Online Mobilization Coordinator

P.S. Mad about overpaid CEOs? So are we. The most important thing to do right now to curb executive pay is to fix our broken financial system by regulating our financial markets. Tell your representatives to draft legislation that truly strengthens our financial regulations and begins curing the disease that has infected our economic system.