Call to Defend Pay Ratio a Centerpiece of 2017 AFL-CIO Executive Pay Watch Report

Executive Pay Plan Design

The AFL-CIO released its annual "Executive Paywatch" report this week, as usual decrying CEO compensation at U.S. companies.  The report includes a prominent "Call to Action" to support the pay ratio disclosure, noting: "Wall Street and big corporations have lobbied hard to stop the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from enforcing [the pay ratio].  It's time to change that."  The rest of the report closely mirrors past years and attempts to link executive compensation to tax avoidance and offshoring.  To this end, the union’s website provides an annual update of the CEO Pay Ratio, calculated using Bureau of Labor Statistics data for average non-supervisory worker pay, which is 347:1 for 2016—up from 335:1 in 2015.  Additionally, the site includes a searchable database of CEO pay by company as well as a searchable list of "corporate tax avoiders," which is based merely on the amount of unrepatriated profits at large companies.