For many years, employees have had drastically lower wages than their CEOs, and while the average CEO wage has increased with company profitability, many corporations have not increased their typical worker wage to the same extent, if at all.
Many companies have taken large financial hits as a result of the pandemic, however instead of prioritizing employee safety, these corporations have put their workers at risk in order to return to profitable conditions. Workers should not have to choose between their lives and providing for their families.
The people impacted by corporate greed are the workers who work tirelessly and put in the same amount of effort as their CEO who is making 287x more money than them. But the issue is bigger than just an average worker’s pay. This average worker’s entire family is now negatively affected by the issue because now some of them can’t afford to go to college or maybe now they have to sell their car to make up for the already low wages that were cut even more to feed corporate greed.
The main challenge communities face as a result of corporate greed is an inability to pay for basic things. While workers are on the front lines risking their lives, they are struggling to pay for their homes or for their children’s college tuition, things they wouldn’t be struggling with if the gap in pay ratio between them and their CEOs wasn’t so large. The major obstacle now in implementing change is Covid-19. The government is struggling enough to come out of the pandemic alive, so their focus on corporate greed and the average worker isn’t as strong as it should be. And that’s what makes this cause even more important. Workers are being hurt more as a result of covid-19, but they are also being neglected more, exposing the urgency of the matter.
This video illustrates how Amazon has prioritized profits over worker safety, even prior to the pandemic.