How much did you earn in your first job? Do you even remember?
Most of us probably earned a pittance in the early days of our adolescence, working on a paper round or at the local McDonalds, or working in retail over the school holidays.
I came late to work, finding a factory job at the beginning of university before the term started. It was an awful job, standing all day, spray painting car parts, gloveboxes I think.
I do remember hobbling home that first week to soak my poor feet in a tub of warm water; they were killing me, unaccustomed as I was to standing on concrete floors for eight hours.
One of the things that annoyed me about that job was the low rate of pay.
My boyfriend at the time was working in a factory crushing reject cigarettes – another between uni jobs. Granted he stood all day as he stomped on the reject ciggies but he earned twice what I did. Where was the fairness in this?
Low wages
We both seemed to be doing unskilled work, without much need for expertise. The factory I worked at employed mainly women; he was in an industry dominated by men. My hackles rise every time I think about that situation. And the continuing pay disparity between women and men. And the low wages of care givers in our society.
This leads me to my major beef today – the wages paid to top executives.
The headlines this week revealed that Elon Musk had asked his shareholders for a pay remuneration of $56 billion. Yes, you read that correctly. Not millions, but billions.
Granted an American billion is not the same as a UK standard billion – the American one is a thousand million whereas the UK one was traditionally a million, million, but who needs to quibble at this point. It is an obscenely large sum of many in any one’s terms. In fact, it seems beyond the comprehension of most of us.
When Tesla shareholders voted to approve of this wage demand, Musk was said to have exclaimed, “Hot damn, I love you guys.”
Well, I can see how easily his love is bought. But should this be happening? How can anyone on this planet be worth being paid that much money?
The trouble with giving such immense salaries/stock options to heads of corporations is multi layered. Obviously, paying out those sums before paying shareholders a dividend, eats into the money pie leftover. Tesla shareholders seem to think this is worthwhile though they appear to be gambling on an increase in share price because Musk is lured to stay on as head of the company.
Narcissistic behaviour
Paying such sums of money inevitably leads to an enlarged ego on the part of the CEO. And whose ego wouldn’t soar in those situations? But is this healthy and what are the consequences of such an ego stroke? Narcissistic behaviour and a disconnect from the real world?
The trouble with having and earning immense sums of money is the power and influence that it brings – power to change the direction of politics, manipulate the media and affect the lives of untold people around the globe.
Do we want to invest such power in these CEOs and corporations? A bit late I suppose to be asking these questions, when the heads of Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Tesla are paid obscene amounts. To me they appear to be the new kings of the world, strutting their importance, pushing their agendas, but thankfully not chopping anyone’s heads off-yet.
Sweden has balked at paying huge wages to CEOs, with governments there focussing on spreading wealth across the society. Their top executives are paid well below rates of the rest of the world and both shareholders and executives seem happy with the situation. They also hold to the concept of “jantelagen” which means nobody should show off or break the mould.
Perhaps an email or X (formerly Twitter) message should be sent to Elon Musk alerting him to the Swedish philosophy? I bet he never earned a pittance on a factory floor or hobbled home from standing all day.
Do you think executive salaries have got out of hand? Why not share your opinion in the comments section below?
