UAW chief calls pay 'excessive'


Amy Wilson
Automotive News
April 4, 2008 - 10:30 am ET
UPDATED: 4/4/08 3:34 p.m. EDT

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger is blasting the pay awarded to top Ford Motor Co. executives in 2007 as “excessive and unjustified.”

Ford announced today that CEO Alan Mulally received a compensation package worth $21.7 million in 2007. The compensation for Ford’s top five executives totaled more than $60 million.

“Our members at Ford agreed to substantial sacrifices in 2007 to help Ford survive, so the company can rebuild and reinvest in the United States,” Gettelfinger said in a statement released Friday afternoon. “We did not sacrifice so that management could find a way to reward themselves with higher compensation.”

Gettelfinger added that the UAW called on automakers to use the savings achieved in the new contracts negotiated last year to reinvest in America and lower costs to consumers. “We’re extremely disappointed that Ford has apparently chosen to go in a very different direction,” Gettelfinger said.

Terms of Ford's compensation packages were:

• Mulally was paid a base salary of $2 million and incentive bonus awards of $7 million. The $21.7 million total included salary, bonuses, company-recognized expense for stock options and other stock awards, plus other compensation such as vehicle and travel expenses.

Mulally collected $28.2 million in 2006, which included $11 million to compensate him for compensation forfeited when he left his previous employer, Boeing Co.

• CFO Don Leclair was Ford’s second-highest paid executive, earning $11.7 million in total compensation. That included just over $1 million in salary and $3 million in incentive bonus awards. He was awarded options valued at $4.2 million. His total compensation in 2006 was $4.4 million.

• Ford of Europe and Premier Automotive Group head Lewis Booth was paid a total of $10.3 million. That included salary of $868,133 and incentive bonus awards of $2.3 million.

• Ford Motor Credit CEO Mike Bannister was paid a total of $8.7 million. That included $708,700 in salary and $2.2 million in incentive bonus awards.

• Americas President Mark Fields was paid a total of $8.4 million. That included $1.3 million in salary and $2.9 million in incentive bonus awards.

Ford scheduled its annual shareholders meeting May 8 in Wilmington, Del.

 

In Comparison


Japanese companies are not required to break out salaries and bonuses for top executives. Instead, they lump them together. Last year, Toyota's top 37 executives earned a combined $21.6 million in salary and bonuses, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. U.K. firm Manifest Information Services, which analyzes proxy information, estimates Toyota's top executive, Hiroshi Okuda, earned $903,000 in 2006.

At Honda, the top 21 earned $11.1 million, combined, in salary and bonuses,

 

The compensation package is ridiculous, given how poorly the company is currently in the abyss. If what they are making is directly tied to the performance of the company, then that would be acceptable. However, it does not seem that their compensation would give these guys any incentive at all. Heck, who cares about job performance when you can retire after getting fired after working the first year?

 

And just how much is Gettelfinger HIMSELF making in pay and benefits......from right out of the pockets of UAW members? The article is strangely quiet on that one.

You can rest assured he is not panhandling or sleeping on any grates.

 

He makes between 130k and 180k iirc.

 

21.7 millions for **** poor job that he's doing :O

 

Thats not alot for a union president. Our retail clerks union president makes $300,000 +/- However, we can't complain because our benefits package is quite generous

 

I never understood why people get paid that much anyway, especially actors.

What do you do with all that money. I get the compensation for money forfeitted at Boeing, but it seems to me that Mullay could survive off of a measley $5 mil. a year. Even better is that Home Depot CEO that got a $210 mil. severence package for driving the company into the ground. What does one do with that much money?

 

ooooooh i could think of a million things....

 

Wow, no wonder Jim Press et al. jumped ship. Gotta love American companies' elitism.

 

There is no such thing as 'enough' moolah. .

My niece who is 12 yrs old told me once that among teenagers these days there is this saying: those who say money can't buy happiness are just dont know how to spend it . What happen to this world

 

When your that young of course you say and think like that because they are not experienced much in life and don't know what is really important, they are pretty out of touch with reality. What kids care about at that age is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things, what until they are in their 20's and 30's, their thinking will change and money will not be the only thing they care about, hopefully.

Having money will always be nice and it is a great feeling to have a chunk in the bank and a nice comfort zone but I know plenty of people who have alot of money that are absolutely misserable and too miserable to even spend it or have fun with it. They may have money but they are unsatisfied in all other areas of life and see life in a totally negative way. Just about all have a woman in their life that is a gold digger and only with them because they have money and they know it so they see no reason to love her or treat her as anything more then a goldigger or leach and it makes them very angry yet they still stay together. I know a few woman who have alot of money, mostly by getting a big chunk from divorcing a rich husband and they are absolutely miserable because they feel since they have all this money they are entitled to a "better" guy then the average woman and can't stand that these "better" guys are not with them nor seem to want to be with them or they are too old now to snag that guy they feel they are entitled too.

I also know people with very little money and who can't afford to buy anything nice and they are some of the happiest most well adjusted people I have met, they are happy with their lives, being marrried to someone they love, having kids, and don't need much else. They don't have to worry about being married to someone that is only with them for their money, job, what they have because they never really had anything nice. They are not starving and can afford the basics like food, mortgage, electricity, etc and they have some things but they just don't need nice or lavish expensive things to be happy and I admire that.

I would love to be a millionare and would enjoy myself with all the money but eventually I am sure I would need more out of life then just having alot of money like a family and being satisfied with who I was instead of what I have.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

The flip side of this is that in our economy that is the going rate, or market value for CEO's. Does the UAw want to pay $250K for their CEO? Then hwere would they be.

I'm not saying it's fair or right, but top performing execs demand high pay and get it because paying someone 30Million a year to make the company more profitable by 300 Million still makes sense.

It is not good to those who are being paid a lot and not performing. Again, anyone in upper mgmt. knows tha tturning around a company or "improving" it can be a task that requires a lot of time. Then, there are other compnaies who will never change, and slowly die off because of their refusal to innovate and change. This cannot be blamed entirely on an exec.

 

true, but that's if they are actually doing a good job to turn the company around. i still don't see much future on ford (and the other detriot companies) unfortunately

what a ridiculous amount of compensations paid to them for not doing a good job