According to the Institute for Policy Studies, American CEOs make 263 times the average compensation for American workers. The average pay for CEOs is eight times what it was in 1970 while American workers are taking home less in real weekly wages than they were in the 1970s.

Most Americans seem to be okay with that. A good number want to extend the tax cuts for these rich folks for reasons that escape me. And we all know the inequities will only continue to grow: The system for paying CEOs is broken beyond repair since the people in control of the system, who are the CEOs and their boardroom buddies, are the ones who benefit from it.

Randall Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T, made more than $20 million in 2009 while laying off around 12,000 people. Many Americans, including a good number of workers who are making less now than they or their parents did in 1970, seem to care more about protecting Mr. Stephenson’s right to earn and keep as much money as he can than about the 12,000 people who lost their jobs because of his management team’s incompetence. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg only earned around $17 million in 2009 but he laid off more than 21,000 folks. William Weldon at Johnson & Johnson had total compensation in 2009 of $25,569,844 and his company laid off nearly 9,000 people.

These obscene compensation packages are only going to get more obscene but at some point, the workers who have been getting shafted for forty years are going to rebel. They’re going to stop believing leaders who tell them they are important but never pay them as if they really are. They’re going to ignore those cynical leaders who praise their participation in initiatives that improve their organizations when the only ones who benefit from those improvements are the leaders and, in better economic times, the shareholders. They’re going to dismiss leaders who say that employees are their most important asset while treating them like commodities.

Johnson & Johnson has a credo that states: “We are responsible to our employees…We must respect their dignity and recognize their merit. They must have a sense of security in their jobs. Compensation must be fair and adequate.” If Mr. Weldon’s compensation is fair and adequate, what does that say about the compensation of all of the J&J employees who make the company successful? And how does laying off 8,900 people provide a sense of security?

We can’t do anything about executive compensation, but we can stop being suckers. A pat on the back is nice but a raise is nicer. An invitation to join a prestigious team is an honor but a higher salary is more useful. A thank-you from the CEO may be rare praise but being paid a fair wage is even rarer.

It’s not hard to imagine a CEO who makes hundreds of times more than his average worker creating a high-performance environment, but I can’t imagine it would last. At some point even the most naïve employees will realize they are just tools.

For more agitation, click on these articles:

• He Is 400x More Valuable Than You Are
• Shut! Up!
• Layoffs and the Failure of Leadership
• Dilbert Rips Employee Engagement
• Excessive Executive Compensation Derails Excellence

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