http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/01/25/too-much-money-can-make-the-boss-mean/#more-43158Here’s another reason to do away with runaway CEO pay. A study shows bloated CEO pay can make the boss mean.
The study examined the corporate behavior of 261 companies and found a close correlation between pay inequality and poor treatment of workers. In companies where CEOs made much more than their average workers, the companies were more likely to underfund pensions or cut corners on health and safety. Often, according to the study, the bosses engaged in a cost-benefit analysis, calculating that a fine would be a cost of doing business, compared with the profits they could make.
“You end up basically thinking of those at the bottom as numbers,’’ Sreedhari Desai, a Harvard research fellow who co-authored the study, told The Boston Globe columnist Joanna Weiss. “You feel somehow that they aren’t even worthy of the normal people that you’d meet. They’re disposable.’’
More at the link -- including link to pdf findings.