Peter Roskam Fights for Higher Wages…For CEOs

The other day I took a look at the Congressional Record to try and get a better sense of what Peter Roskam is doing in Congress, what he is fighting for. As expected for a freshman, I guess, the record of his arguments before the House is not long. But what issues got Peter Roskam enthused enough to get up before the House and argue his position? How to provide health care to the nation’s uninsured children? Stopping the war in Iraq? Ensuring fair wage for hourly workers? Providing health services for brain-injured Iraq veterans? Protecting our civil liberties and the powers of Congress against an over-reaching executive branch? Nope, I didn’t find evidence of Roskam speaking to any of these issues.

But Roskam did rise to speak to protect the compensation of highly paid corporate executives.

It was April 18, 2007. At issue was H.R. 1257, Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act. Roskam rose to speak against it. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts would provider for shareholders in a public corporation to have an advisory vote in determining the compensation of executives of that corporation.

Now remember that Peter voted against giving minimum wage workers a raise. He thought it was just fine that these workers, who hadn’t had a raise in 10 years, should go on earning $5.15/hour. Meanwhile he was fighting to prevent shareholders, including those of us whose retirement savings are invested in public corporations, from having a voice in limiting excessive compensation to their CEO’s, compensation that robs shareholders of value and is paid at the expense of ordinary workers.

According to figures reported by the AFL-CIO, the ratio of the average CEO’s pay to the average worker’s pay has increased from 42:1 in 1980 to 411:1 in 2005. In 2006, the average total compensation of the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation was $14.78 million, a 9.4% increase over 2005. How many of the rest of us got a 9.4% raise? Is our labor really worth 411 times less than a corporate CEO?

The AFL-CIO maintains a database of CEO compensation based on SEC filings. Here’s the size of the paychecks for selected CEO’s, including some of particular interest in Chicagoland:

CEO Salaries

These are the guys who Peter Roskam is fighting for. They are the same guys who are are laying us off and outsourcing our jobs overseas while raising their prices for the goods and services we need and, in some cases, making fat profits off the war in Iraq that is killing and maiming our sons and daughters, the war that Peter Roskam refuses to stop. And Peter Roskam wants to make it possible for them to have no accountability regarding what they pay themselves. Meanwhile he is working to limit the wages of ordinary workers.

Peter Roskam is out-of-touch with the needs of his constituents. We need a Congressman who will fight for the needs of ordinary people and will not just do the bidding of the President and of large corporations.