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Why is the CEO pay relevant? It is not even within an order of magnitude of the amounts needed to pay for even the contract Boeing proposed to the union, let al
by blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Why is the CEO pay relevant? It is not even within an order of magnitude of the amounts needed to pay for even the contract Boeing proposed to the union, let alone the union’s demands. People complain about CEO pay as if paying them less would get them what they want. Frankly companies need CEOs, and people who are qualified for the job are very few in number. Whereas the line workers represented by the machinist unions are in trades where there are massive quantities of workers available - which is why many took Boeing jobs even if they were not happy with the pay and benefits.
I am also not sure why the stock buybacks are worth mentioning. There are many reasons why a buyback may be the right thing for a company to do. I am aware that sometimes it can be a manipulation of executive compensation by artificially raising the stock price (and may have been so here). And obviously I don’t support that. But I feel like the practice of buying back is attacked by many without adequate understanding of what it is for and how it can be financially good for the company, helping support future investments.
- stevage 2y agoHigh CEO pay is a symptom of poor board control, not a direct cause of poor performce.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoCEO pay generally has a relationship to company size, and Boeing is pretty big. It would be hard to argue their CEO is overpaid if they paid the CEO that much and the CEO did a good job. Implying the problem is not how much they were paid but rather the quality of the work.
- tempfile 2y ago> Implying the problem is not how much they were paid but rather the quality of the work. Aren't those identical? If you do a bad job, we could have got the same bad job from someone else, who we could have paid less...
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoNo, because the CEO who is paid $300/year and then likewise bankrupts the multi-billion dollar company is to a first order approximation the same amount of bad and what you actually need is the CEO who does a good job even if you have to pay them millions of dollars.
- ywvcbk 2y agoThey did a great job, though.. From the perspective of other board members, upper management and the shareholders at the time.
- bluGill 2y agoThere is the real problem - we cannot evaluate how a CEO did today for another 10 years. Their job is to figure out where the company needs to be in 10 years and then get them there.
- sofixa 2y agoCEO pay is relevant because Boeing haven't had a competent CEO in decades. Yet all of them were compensated handsomely for making pretty obviously bad choices (e.g. the 787 development was done McDonnell Douglas style, pushing most of the costs and risk to suppliers, and was highly problematic) or downright killing people through negligence. > I am also not sure why the stock buybacks are worth mentioning Because Boeing is a very capital intensive business that is currently in mountains of expensive debt, with multiple projects delayed with years, and a recovery time of 5 years minimum. The idiots in charge wasted billions on the wrong things, and now the company is a very bad situation.
- triceratops 2y agoIt's relevant because the company's performance has been a dog turd. They clearly overpaid for a low-performer.