Letter to the editor: Greed the motive for automaker CEOs

Recent Trib articles on the workers strike at GM and Stellantis were eye-opening. The CEOs’ compensation of $21 million to $29 million yearly is indeed staggering. Using an average of $25 million, the CEOs earn $12,000 per hour, or $96,000 a day, which is more than the yearly median household income. The CEOs earn more in one day than the average American household earns in one year. Contrasting the CEOs’ $12,000 per hour to the auto workers median salary of $38 per hour, one finds a ratio of over 300 to 1. That is excessive.

To add insult to injury, consider how GM used its profits. It handed $25 billion to Wall Street bankers and wealthy shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividends. Instead of rewarding the employees for concessions made during the lean years, management chose stock buybacks. Instead of lowering prices for the struggling consumer, it chose stock buybacks. Stock buybacks were considered market manipulation and therefore illegal until Reagan-era market deregulations. Maybe they should again be illegal.

GM recently closed plants in Michigan and Ohio, laying off thousands of workers and shipping jobs overseas. Instead of solidarity with the American workers and consumers, GM is thinking only of making more profits to give to Wall Street.

Sandy Kremer

Youngwood