>>>But I fail to understand the argument that a CEO who didn't build the company from the ground up should receive less compensation.
>>
>>No one said that any employee or contractor shouldn't earn as much as someone else is willing to pay.
>>If someone can persuade shareholders to give them zillions, more power to them.
>>One question was whether a CEO has taken more risks, and therefore has some kind of preferential status, as compared to a member of a collective bargaining unit.
>>Another question is whether the systematic attacks on unions have led our power structure to become skewed in favor of high earners at the expense of low earners, whose real wages have declined since the 1970's while those of high earners have skyrocketed.
>
>Hi Bill,
>
>Pardon me for jumping in this thread but I think an essential point has yet to be made.
>
>The main "issue" that many conservatives, including me, have is with unions of government employees which often negotiate contracts with the government decision makers to whom they also make generous campaign donations. And to make it worse, those negotiations, especially at the state and local levels, are not always subject to a stringent approval process.
>
>That often results in extremely generous retirement plans because the negotiators simply "kick the can down the road" for their successors and the taxpayers to deal with.
>
>Ken

dream on....
Peter (soon to be retired :-)