Top CEOs' retirement equal to more than 40% of Americans

Retirement security is a top concern of everyday Americans. That's because they know all too well the consequences of it.

CEOs aren't facing retirement cuts like some workers.

A new report details the wide gulf that exists in retirement savings. The document, released today by the Center for Effective Government and the Institute for Policy Studies, shows that 100 CEOs have as much in company retirement assets as the entire retirement savings of 41 percent of American families.

The average worth of the 100 largest CEO retirement accounts is about $49.3 million. David Novak of YUM Brands -- the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC -- had the largest company-paid retirement package at $234 million.

Sarah Anderson, director of the Institute for Policy Studies' Global Economy Project, said the report details yet another symptom of the nation's growing income inequality problem:

The CEO-worker retirement divide has turned our country’s already extreme income divide into an even wider economic chasm. And what few realize is that the trends of expanding CEO pensions and increasing worker retirement insecurity are inextricably linked.

The percentage of private sector workers covered by a defined benefit pension that guarantees monthly payments has dropped from 35 percent in the early 1990s to 18 percent last year. And nearly half of all U.S. workers had no access to any retirement plan at work.

That's unacceptable. That's why the Teamsters have been at the forefront of fighting excessive CEO compensation. The union pushed hard for the Securities Exchange Commission to institute the CEO pay ratio rule approved under Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation passed in 2010, and protested the pay and retirement package of McKesson CEO John Hammegren while the company provided substandard wages and health benefits to employees in Florida.

We also included retirement security as one of its planks in the Teamster's "Let's Get America Working" platform that sets out a path to improve the lives of workers across the country. Because if the U.S. is to succeed, all of those participating in the economy need to get a piece of the pie.

McKesson employee, fired for speaking out about low pay, reinstated

Glenn Gray speaking out at McKesson's annual meeting last year

Glenn Gray will be back at his old job at a McKesson warehouse in Lakeland, Fla., after he was fired for speaking out about the workers' low pay. McKesson's CEO, John Hammergren, is one of the highest paid CEOs in the country.

Here's what Brother Gray said:

A majority of my co-workers cannot even afford to participate in the company’s health care plan or to contribute anything out of their paychecks to the company’s 401(k) plan.

NLRB judge Judge Keltner W. Locke ordered McKesson to immediately reinstate him and other fired workers and to stop soliciting employees to decertify their union.

According to a Teamsters' press statement,

...McKesson unlawfully fired 13-year employee Glenn Gray after he confronted McKesson CEO John Hammergren at the company’s shareholder meeting in July 2013. At the meeting, Gray challenged Hammergren, who receives about $50 million a year in total compensation and has one of the highest reported pensions of any executive, to address the dire situation in Lakeland...

The judge ordered McKesson to fully reinstate and provide back pay to both Gray and another employee who was illegally terminated for union activity.

More than three years ago, McKesson workers in Lakeland, Fla. voted to join the Teamsters despite an aggressive anti-union campaign.These workers still do not have a first contract. They're continuing to fight for fair compensation and affordable health care. Last week, Judge Locke ruled McKesson illegally plotted to solicit employees to sign a petition to decertify the union.

Teamsters International Vice President Ken Wood said:

The workers at McKesson have stayed strong despite being harassed, coerced, and denied their federally-protected rights. Now that the NLRB has ruled against the decertification, hopefully the workers will get the protections of a fair first contract that they deserve.

Wood is also president of Teamsters Local Union 79 in Tampa.

Teamsters to FedEx: Quit paying personal taxes for Fred Smith

The Teamsters want FedEx to stop giving its top executives millions of dollars of perks while cutting employees' pensions and raising their health care costs.

The Teamsters are sponsoring a shareholder proposal for FedEx to stop paying the personal taxes owed on restricted stock awards to CEO Fred Smith and other executives. Today, a leading proxy voting adviser recommended that shareholders support the Teamsters' proposal.

Ken Hall, Teamsters general secretary-treasurer, said:

Shareholdesr are fed up with FedEx paying personal taxes for the company's well-compensated executives. FedEx has cut pensions and raised the costs of medical coverage for workers while continuing to lavish executives with this outdated perk. 

A Teamsters press statement said,

According to the company’s 2014 proxy statement, FedEx paid out more than $1.8 million in tax gross ups for the named executive officers last year. Over the past four years FedEx has paid more than $6.4 million just in tax payments for top executives’ restricted stock awards. The FedEx shareholder meeting will be Sept. 29. 

Now we know why Fred Smith thinks personal income taxes should rise and corporate income taxes should be lowered. In December 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported

FedEx Corp. Chairman and CEO Frederick W. Smith said lawmakers should increase individual tax rates and lower levies on corporations as part of a deal to advert the fiscal cliff. 

Such a deal would avoid across-the-board tax increases and would spur job creation and economic growth, he said in a speech Thursday to the Economic Club of Washington. 

Easy for him to say, since his company pays his taxes!

The Teamsters just this week announced they have organized workers at FedEx Freight for the first time in North America.  FedEx Freight workers in Delanco, N.J., will be voting on October 10 in their Teamsters election, and numerous Teamster local unions in the United States have filed for elections at FedEx Freight.