Why I\'m Embarrassed to be a Queenslander.

[Spurius Papirius Cursor]

One can understand the frustration of low paid workers getting laid off at the same time that the CEO gets a multi-million dollar pay rise.

I once asked a person debating me what was it made a CEO worth so very much more in dollar terms than a cleaner and got the usual "don't be frivolous" response.

Not accepted (or perhaps not seen) was the principle that, if a human is essential to the functioning of an enterprise, s/he's the equal in one sense to every other human involved in making the enterprise work. Unarguably, differencing occurs when you consider the cost of replacing a component.

It costs a cleaner far less to become a cleaner than it does a biologist to become a biologist. Each, in fairness, deserves suitable compensation for his/her outlay in becoming what s/he has, and so the biologist is paid more than the cleaner. That I can live with as long as payment to each follows that principle.

But what do CEOs have? An MBA? A PhD in Economics or the like? Experience? Luck? Smarts? Ability? Brass? Most likely, the last five. My principle works on the degree, not on the last five. How do you fix a fair compensation on those things? I don't know and obviously few others do either. Hence, we're into - let's be honest - bribing. What else do you call it when someone says "I'll give you more money than the other lot to lead us". That's when greed and ego on the one hand negotiaste with greed and accessible wealth on the other to set an upper limit to the bribe.

And with such people as CEOs, we wonder why organizations behave as they do?

I love this planet :woot: !

Howard / SPC