“We’re fed up with falling behind,” declared Shawn Fain, the boss of America’s United Auto Workers (UAW), last month after the union began a campaign of intermittent strikes at Ford, General Motors (GM) and Stellantis, America’s “big three” carmakers. A month in and the two sides are still at loggerheads. Jim Farley, Ford’s chief executive,…
The SEC has revisited its pay-versus-performance disclosure rule with a fresh batch of question-and-answer guidance about various technical aspects of the one-year old rule. The guidance, in the form of nine compliance and disclosure interpretations (CD&Is), generally addresses how companies should treat valuation issues and metrics for the purposes of calculating figures in the disclosure…
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has criticized the Big Three automakers for the raises given to their CEOs in the past few years, saying wage gains for rank-and-file employees haven’t kept pace. By one measure—the ratio of the CEO’s pay to the median worker’s—automakers have a wider pay gap than most large companies. And…
From fiery speeches on union picket lines to pointed shareholder resolutions, criticism of CEO pay packages has taken on new urgency in 2023, even as the gap between the salaries at the top and bottom of the corporate ladder has continued to grow. How outlandish have CEO salaries gotten? Can they ever be reined in?…
Money can, in fact, buy happiness: A much publicized 2010 study found that employees needed to earn $75,000 per year to feel fulfilled, and that each additional dollar above that wouldn’t make a difference. But according to more recent research from Matthew Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, there is no such…
As more states require companies to share information on salary transparency, the question of pay equity between executives and workers is being taken up by unions, shareholder activists, and researchers who question why CEO pay has ballooned in recent years. But the latest batch of executive compensation disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission…
“Fair” is a subjective term when it comes to compensation. Does someone whose leadership drives a company’s stock price to new heights deserve compensation that’s exponentially higher than the people working for him or her? Sometimes, perhaps. At some point, though, the ratio between pay for folks at the top of the org chart and…
In July of 2023, right before the start of the actors’ strike and more than two months into the Hollywood writers’ strike, Disney CEO Bob Iger was attending investment firm Allen & Company’s annual Sun Valley Conference, an event known as “summer camp for billionaires.” It was there—the same day it was announced that his…
The SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance has sent hundreds of comment letters this year questioning the prominence of non-GAAP figures in companies’ earnings releases and other filings in what experts said is an easy gotcha for the staff. …In a review of comment letters sent to Russell 3000 companies between January 2022 and May 2023…
Of the many worries that whirl around the minds of chief executives, few are more unsettling than the question of succession. Having toiled their way to the top of the corporate ladder, many bosses struggle to imagine relinquishing control and placing their legacy in the hands of another. A growing number of America’s bosses have…