Georgetti Says Bloated CEO Salaries Are 'Obscene': CLC Wants Ottawa to Reverse Corporate Tax Cuts

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Jan. 3, 2012) - The President of the Canadian Labour Congress says that the salaries and benefits of corporate CEOs are "obscene" and that in its next budget the federal government should reverse planned corporate tax breaks.

Ken Georgetti was responding to a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) indicating that by noon on January 3, 2010 Canada's 100 highest paid CEOs had already been paid $44,366, as much as it takes the average wage earner a year to make. The elite CEOs were paid an average $8.38 million in 2010, an increase of 27 per cent over their previous year's salary.

"The income gap between corporate CEOs and the average hard working Canadian is growing every year and it is obscene," Georgetti says. "These CEOs get an increase of 27 per cent while in London, Ontario and Alma, Quebec profitable multinational corporations have locked out workers because they won't take drastic pay cuts. This is grotesque."

Georgetti is calling on Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to use his next budget to reverse corporate tax breaks. "The government keeps giving tax breaks to corporations who are supposed to use the money to create good jobs, but what they are really doing is giving outrageous salaries and bonuses to CEOs while attempting to destroy middle class jobs and incomes. Corporations and their CEOs aren't living up to their part of the bargain to create good jobs in return for tax cuts, so they should give that money back."

The Conservative government has dropped the federal corporate tax rate from 21 per cent in 2006 to 15 per cent in 2012. That has cost the treasury about $12 billion in foregone tax revenue.

The Canadian Labour Congress, the national voice of the labour movement, represents 3.3 million Canadian workers. The CLC brings together Canada's national and international unions along with the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils. See the CLC website for a copy of the letter to Finance Minister Flaherty: www.canadianlabour.ca.

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