ultimately, it simply boils down to that.
setting aside the gross abuse of CEO and executive pay. The unions would love to think their pay is intertwined to what execs make. No, its not. The execs will get their pay no matter what. They are ruthless and will find ways to do it with whatever company they can.
Its not the job of the union to turn it into a war on execs, it deflects attention from what the union workewr should be paid on a competitive basis.
Its not the union's job to use negotiations for their rank and files' jobs as hostage for some sort of lame, amateur class warfare.
If we are going to wage warfare of class or whatever on CEO pay, it must occur through public opinion, the media and and all the general sentiment and population. That's the only source of pressure that can affect change, and its mainstream, and not cheesy as it owuld be if the union tried to do it themselves.
A union trying to fight that battle is a joke, because all the non-union folks are sitting there watching the tv saying, 'why are all those union people bitching about the executive pay and their own pay? they make assloads more than I do already! How am I supposed to feel for them?'
It becomes anti-union angst. People today are too sophisticated to fall for the 'troubled worker' bit. Its so 'early industrial revolution'. In 2005, you have to fuck with people's minds and spoonfeed them info of what you want them to believe in press, marketing, advertising, legal affairs, the courts, schools, you have to wage your wars on cerebral levels with all the soccer moms and testosteroneless makeup wearing men. Threats don't work on the American mind anymore. People are like so, 'whatever', as they sip on their mochas.
Example, how else does Toyota sell so many cars? Mental subterfuge. Our tools for fighting wars are the press and internet, mommies during playgroup, college lectures, 'industry experts', and communications reduced down to headlines but with graphic snapshots or video that are emotionally motivating. But not to the point where someone goes, 'they're so clueless'.
Listen, if we want to affect a change in the exec pay abuse, let's leave that out of union disputes because it has little relevance there to the general population...let's take it to the court of opinion. Let's creat a one hour show each week on NBC or something and show 4 execs and detail their excessive pay, what they actually do for a living, what they spend it on, how they live. Let's invade these people's private lives and make them spectacles. Let's detail exactly why Bill McGuire making 60 mill a year or whatever drives up the cost of some poverty stricken woman's healthcare. Let's write novels about it in our editorial pages. Let's step up our examinations of these folks financial and tax records. Let's SPRINGERIZE IT. Let's bring em down that way. Not through unions.
put these bastards on the spot. if they think they are entitiled to earn that much and go unscathed and not have their rectums examined in the public opinion court.....if they are going to rob the public, then maybe the public should go on the offensive and make these folks exposed in every way, personal and private. If they are good people, then it will show. If they are truly bastards, then it will be a powerful statement of how morally reprehensible some can be.
Not all execs are bad. But too many are way overpaid. Let's hold the overpaid to a higher standard and put them under the microscope.
You know, in some cases, you'd see how much some of these folks give to charity.