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Study could curb executive bonuses
A business executive waiting for his pay
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TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: A coalition of big corporations and investors wants to change the way executives are paid. They're lining up behind a new study expected today from the business research group The Conference Board. Marketplace's Tamara Keith has more.
Tamara Keith: Major corporations haven't won much public support by giving top executives shockingly huge bonuses, golden parachutes and letting them use corporate jets for family vacations.
Now those practices could be on the way out. Cisco Systems, AT&T, Hewlett Packard and the California State Teachers Retirement System are reportedly getting behind The Conference Board's recommendations. The idea is to reduce short-term financial incentives so executives will focus on long-term results and to tie pay to performance.
Also gone could be those long-term contracts with wildly generous severance packages if a company is sold or an executive is cut loose. Those involved with the plan admit it is an effort to get ahead of potential government regulation of executive pay.
In Washington, I'm Tamara Keith for Marketplace.
If everyone who owned a mutual fund would contact the fund owner and demand that executives have to abide by a rule that they will make no more than 10 times the lowest paid person, the problem of executive compensation would virtually vanish and all workers would benefit.
