Re: Green Streak

["Peter Dow" <maillist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This no doubt belongs on non-tech, but FWIW:

Excerpt from http://www.house.gov/sabo/ap-ie.htm  04/07/2000

     WASHINGTON (AP) - Hoping to narrow the gap between skyrocketing
 CEO pay and employee wages, Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., is pushing
 legislation that would limit the tax deduction for CEO pay to 25
 times that of the company's lowest full-time salary.

<large snip>

    Sabo's proposal is reminiscent of the old policy at Ben &
 Jerry's Ice Cream, which limited the company's top salary to five
 times the lowest salary. In 1990, after having trouble attracting
 topflight management, the ratio was changed to 7-to-1.
    The company scrapped the policy altogether when company
 co-founder Ben Cohen stepped down as CEO in 1995, and Ben & Jerry's
 had its ``Yo, I want to be your CEO'' contest to replace him.

    Still, the company's current ratio is only 16-to-1 _ CEO Perry
 Odak made $465,000 in total compensation, while entry-level workers
 make about $29,000.

    ``There is a very conscious decision for a compressed ratio,''
 said Ben & Jerry's spokesman Lee Holden. ``We pay at the top end of
 the local scale and the low end of the high (CEO) scale.''

    Sabo, who said he was not aware of Ben & Jerry's philosophy,
 acknowledged that government can only do so much.

[Currently the maximum tax deduction a publicly-owned corporation can take
for an officer's salary is $1M.  And for the cynics, B & J implemented
anti-takeover policies, forcing a purchaser to negotiate with the board of
directors; when the initial take over offers began, B & J's directors owned
47% of the stock, and the ending price 12/26/99 was $21.  They sold for
$43.60, so the owners of the remaining 53% did well too. The sale agreement
includes mandatory minimum contribution by Unilever to the B & J Foundation
of $1.1M annually for 10 years + a 1 time contribution of $5M as well as
other concessions -- http://www.benjerry.com/foundation/funding.html  You
should also check out Sweat X --
http://www.cameraguild.com/news/labor/sweat-x.htm]

Peter Dow
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 793-9050 voice
909 522-3214 cellular
909 793-4480 fax

----- Original Message -----
From: <rob@dekko.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 10:00 AM
Subject: RE: Green Streak


> Simon
>
> Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream made an announcement to their employees that no
> CEO would be paid more than x times than certain other employees.  (I
> forget the exact numbers.)  Turns out they had to renege on that promise.
> They couldn't find a qualified CEO.
>
> I got that from a TV documentary 'Greed' by John Stossel.  So good, they
> had to run it a few times.