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Bored Panda reached out to one Redditor who preferred to stay anonymous, who shared their own experience in response to this thread: “Reminds me of the end of 2021 when my director told me she couldn't approve the maximum raise for a third of my staff, who met all performance criteria. She said it would get flagged by corporate. Turns out she was the final approver, corporate doesn't question her performance ratings at all. Thank God I called her bluff and will be able to give out some nice raises this year.”
The Redditor told us that their initial reaction to this situation was confusion. “She's normally pretty great when it comes to the employee experience, and she even applauded me for trying to get more for my people. I honestly think she's just been conditioned by 'corporate propaganda,' if you will, to try and protect the bottom line.”
“I've worked for this company for 11 years and I've found that tons of directors and VPs make decisions just because they think that's the way it is. When we research policies or procedures, 'the way it is' holds no water. Their boss fed them a line and as they ascended into positions of power, they kept regurgitating it,” they explained.
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When asked about greedy CEOs and directors, the Redditor said they definitely feel entitled. “Especially directors in massive organizations, a lot of them did start on the ground floor and move up and now they feel entitled to recognition and bonuses,” they said and added that “As for CEOs, they'll feed you the standard line of shit that they 'worked 20-hour days' etc. when really, data shows they're just lucky and had opportunity provided by a cushy family life.”
Having said that, the Redditor believes that the pay inequality is “disgusting.” “These people have no idea what it's like to actually be a front-line employee. They have no empathy, and no desire to understand how it really works. The irony of people insulated, in executive echo chambers, working from home, trying to push their most vulnerable workers back into the field is really depressing.”
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The Redditor also shared their own idea for pay and wealth inequality. “The company I work for actually addressed it and I think it's a great idea. So, a lot of capitalist sympathizers will use the line, 'well they're not sitting on cash, they just have stock.' Okay, fine. Companies can start giving out restricted stock units. The same way they offer executives stock packages, give some of that to the frontline. CEOs can still keep controlling interest even if they give thousands of RSUs to their lowest-tier workers,” they said and added that “That's a great way to distribute wealth and reduce turnover.”
They continued: “I also think we need legislation to address the pay gap. Even without stock units, executives are still paid 10x, 20x, 30x their entry-level positions in cash. We need to legislate that out of existence. Studies show time after time that increasing the income for anyone making less than ~$60k/year will directly feed all of that money back into the economy. The corporations will make it back!”