Tag: Human Capital

Investors Probe Companies on Covid-19 Transition Plans

Investors are pushing companies to address things like hazard pay and whether temporary policies and practices related to employees need to stay in place as businesses transition out of the depth of the pandemic.

Yesterday, New York City comptroller Scott Stringer sent a letter to the Amazon board’s leadership development and compensation committee asking chair Judith McGrath to address at its upcoming annual meeting scheduled for May 27 “media reports regarding widespread Covid-19 health and safety concerns among Amazon employees, including reports that the company has retaliated against some employees and is pressuring sick employees to come to work.”

“While Amazon management has announced numerous initiatives to keep their employees safe, the onus is on the independent members of the Amazon Board of Directors to report on how they are overseeing the progress of these initiatives and to ensure that these investments produce outcomes beneficial for both employees and shareowners,” the letter states. It asks the board to report to investors on the impacts and outcomes of the steps the company says it has taken to protect employees, including volume trends in Coronavirus cases among employees, days lost due to Covid-related illnesses and complaints filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The letter also asks for the frequency of committee meetings during the pandemic, noting that it has only met three times per year each year for the past five years. Other boards are likely to see similar versions of this letter from investors, if they haven’t already.

McDonald’s CEO Makes an Hour What the Average Worker Makes a Year

McDonald’s Corp. has been among the American companies that pay its workers the least. As some evidence of the ongoing pay problem at the fast-food chain, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has released the compensation of McDonald’s CEO Stephen Easterbrook. He was paid $15.9 million in 2018. That is 2,124 times the median employee salary of $7,473. It means that Easterbrook, who has been CEO since 2015, earns in an hour what it takes a median employee to make in a year, according to data from public company intelligence firm MyLogIQ.

Easterbrook’s pay ratio is the sixth highest among chief executives included in MyLogIQ’s data. In our earlier report on the 100 highest-paid CEOs, Easterbrook was No. 57. It is not the first year he has been paid well. He made $21.8 million in 2017.

McDonald’s has approximately 210,000 workers worldwide, and over 36,000 locations. In its recent proxy statement, the company said that its median employee in 2018 was a part-time restaurant crew employee located in Hungary. The company had revenue of $21 billion last year, down 7% from 2017. Net income was $5.9 billion, up 11%.

Industrial Firms Report Big Swings in Typical Worker’s Pay

A union job at a shipyard, mine or factory usually comes with a steady paycheck, but some U.S. industrial companies are having a hard time figuring out who their typical workers are and how much they make.

Several S&P 500 companies in the industrials and materials sector posted big swings in what they said their median worker was paid in 2018 compared with 2017, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of annual disclosures for hundreds of big U.S. companies as provided by MyLogIQ.

Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls HII -0.88% Industries Inc. and potash producer Mosaic Co. MOS -0.72% reported the typical worker got half as much as the year before. At Honeywell International Inc., HON 0.06% it was 33% higher.

McDonald’s CEO Makes an Hour What the Average Worker Makes a Year

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) has been among the American companies that pay its workers the least. As some evidence of the ongoing pay problem at the fast-food chain, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has released the compensation of McDonald’s CEO Stephen Easterbrook. He was paid $15.9 million in 2018. That is 2,124 times the median employee salary of $7,473. It means that Easterbrook, who has been CEO since 2015, earns in an hour what it takes a median employee to make in a year, according to data from public company intelligence firm MyLogIQ.

Easterbrook’s pay ratio is the sixth highest among chief executives included in MyLogIQ’s data. In our earlier report on the 100 highest-paid CEOs, Easterbrook was number 57. It is not the first year he has been paid well. He made $21.8 million in 2017.

Uber Drivers React to CEO Pay

In a highly anticipated announcement, Uber this month took the leap to go public. In the ride-hailing company’s registration statement, the company revealed that its top officers raked in between nearly $10 million and $48 million last year.

Directors serving on the boards of the new gig-economy unicorns that either have filed or are expected to file IPOs this year face different compensation challenges from some traditional companies, particularly because their workers are classified as contractors, not employees.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was tasked with coming in to replace disgraced co-founder Travis Kalanick and clean up the brand after reports of companywide sexual harassment and discrimination surfaced in 2017. Khosrowshahi has a pay package worth more than $45 million, which is arguably in line with chief executives in his peer group, but given Uber’s non-traditional workforce, its past problems and its veritable online existence, it remains to be seen whether Khosrowshahi’s pay appears appropriate in the eyes of the company’s drivers.

Biden’s Climate Test

Former Vice President Joe Biden (D., Del.) is running for President again. And one of Donald Trump’s 2016 rivals thinks that Mr. Biden is the most formidable of the potential 2020 rivals.

The website Mediaite notes that former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who ran against Mr. Trump in the last round of Republican primaries, sees a potential GOP problem in the Midwest:

Typical Worker’s Pay Nears $200,000 at Oil Refiner

It was a fruitful year for the rank and file at oil-and-gas companies, from Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM 0.25% to Phillips 66. PSX -2.57%

Oil-and-gas drillers and refiners had some of the highest-paid median workers in the energy and utility sectors in 2018, according to The Wall Street Journal analysis of annual pay disclosures for hundreds of big U.S. companies as provided by MyLogIQ.

Houston-based Phillips 66 paid its median worker $196,407, the highest of any company in the sector.

Phillips was followed by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. at $183,445.

Disney Isn’t the Only Company Paying Its CEO 1,000 Times More Than Its Typical Employee Earns

Chief executives have long earned some of the largest paychecks in America, but at what point does their compensation defy reason? If you’re Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of the Disney company’s co-founder Roy Disney, the tipping point is about $66 million — or what Disney CEO Bob Iger earned last year.

In a series of tweets posted on April 21, Abigail Disney criticized the level of compensation Iger receives, stating that “by any objective measure a pay ratio over a thousand is insane.”

The $65.7 million Iger earned last year is indeed more than 1,000 times the median salary of all Disney employees, which is $46,127, according to a study from Equilar. Thanks to incentives associated with his contract extension, that imbalance amounted to a paycheck 1,424 times greater than his workers’ in 2018. (This year, his compensation is projected to be a more modest $35 million.)