A new AFL-CIO report on CEO salaries overlooks the salaries of union leaders.
Paywatch, which is released annually, found that last year an average CEO took home around $13.1 million in pay and benefits. The report furthermore put the average salary and benefits for a U.S. worker at $37,632.
The unions have been steadily declining in membership, and so these figures must be handy in arguing that American workers need them. But the figures may be misleading. Fox News reports:
An audit of past Paywatch reports by the American Enterprise Institute found that the AFL-CIO’s conclusion of the disparaging CEO-to-worker pay ratio is faulty and misleading, saying that the actual average U.S. chief executive earns $194,350.
“[T]he AFL-CIO reported an average CEO pay (total compensation) of $11.7 million for 2013 based on ‘available data from 350 companies,’” reads a 2015 analysis by AEI Scholar Mark J. Perry. “This year, the AFL-CIO fails to mention the exact number of companies it is using to determine that average CEO compensation in 2014 was $13.5 million.”
BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) data show that there are actually 246,240 ‘chief executives’ in the US, who earned an average annual salary of $180,700 in 2014.”
Fox also lists the salaries of some executives that were overlooked by Paywatch–union leaders. Here are some reported union salaries:
* Timothy Canoll of the Air Line Pilots Association: $775,829
* Newton B. Jones of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers: $756,973
* Terence M. O’Sullivan of the Laborers’ International Union: $717,992
* John T. Niccollai of the United Food and Commercial Workers: $594,193
* Harold J. Daggett of the International Longshoremen’s Association: $533,222
Also not included: AFL-CIO head Richard Trumpka reportedly takes home $294,537 in filthy lucre.
Who performs a more valuable service for society, CEOs who keep corporations afloat and thus provide jobs, or union leaders, who often rely on the government support to pad their membership rolls with reluctant members?