Recently in Compensation Category

Source: Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Sam Pizzigati, Kevin Shih, Institute for Policy Studies, 2010

From the summary:
Over 15 million workers were fired from their jobs from January 2007 through December 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Keep that in mind while looking at these numbers from IPS's just-released 17th annual Executive Excess Report, CEO Pay and the Great Recession:

* Fred Hassan, the ex-CEO of Schering-Plough, received a $33 million golden parachute when his firm merged with Merck in late 2009. The merger led to 16,000 workers being fired.
* William Weldon of Johnson & Johnson took home $25.6 million, more than three times as much as the S&P 500 CEO average, at a time when his firm slashed 9,000 jobs and while the company was facing a massive drug recall scandal.
* Mark Hurd of Hewlett-Packard, currently famous for failing to cover up a relationship with a contractor/erotic film star, has been awarded $24.2 million for laying off 6,400 workers. On top of that, he received an additional $28 million in severance.

Source: Lawrence Mishel, Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute, Briefing Paper #277, August 31, 2010

From the summary:
Since the recession started in December 2007, a great deal of attention has been paid to the dramatic loss of jobs, decline in hiring, and the resulting high unemployment in the U.S. labor market. It is important to note, however, that the damaging effects of high unemployment are not just felt by the workers (and the families of workers) who have lost jobs. Workers who have kept their jobs or found new work during this downturn have also suffered from a broad-based collapse of wage growth over the last two years. And with unemployment expected to remain elevated for many years to come, we do not expect the suppression of wage growth to ease anytime soon.

Source: Barbara I. Haga, Roger Richman, and William Leavitt, Public Personnel Management, Volume 39 No. 3, Fall 2010
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The National Security Personnel System (NSPS) was to be a transformational reform of the federal civil service, designed to increase manager's flexibility, discretion and effectiveness in supervising some 700,000 Defense Department civilian employees. The new system replaced the traditional GS classification and rating system with a pay for performance model. The NSPS used broad pay bands, pay pools, "performance shares," distribution formulas, a new five-level rating system, and important changes to labor relations and collective bargaining subjects, all without significant participation and support from employee unions. It didn't work. After five years of troubled implementation, widespread employee dissatisfaction and mistrust of the new system, lawsuits and lobbying, Congress dismantled the NSPS and directed that more than 200,000 participants be returned to the GS system. This article reviews the history of pay for performance in the federal government, then reviews the failed implementation of NSPS, and concludes with a preview of the future of pay for performance within the federal government after the demise of the NSPS.

Source: Empire Center, August 26, 2010

The names and salaries of 186,223 people who worked for New York's county, city, town and village governments in 2009-10 are available at www.SeeThroughNY.net, the transparency website sponsored by the Manhattan Institute's Empire Center for New York State Policy.

The Empire Center also released a report, "2009-10 Public Payrolls," which summarizes average wages on a regional basis for each of the 1,512 local governments (outside New York City) contained in the database, which is based on reports filed with the state pension system. Some highlights:

- County and municipal salaries during the period totaled nearly $9.6 billion.

- The highest paid municipal employee in the state in 2009-10 was Town of Clarkstown Police Chief Peter Noonan, who earned a total of $301,534.

- Among those appearing on multiple payrolls during the year, the individual with the most numerous employers was Raynor Duncombe, who earned $36,959 as a part-time attorney for 11 Schoharie County jurisdictions.

- One individual who appeared on both the "highest-paid" and "multiple employers" list was Michael J. Bolender, who collected a total of $249,979 in salaries while working for six different western New York towns and villages.

- The highest average salary for any group--$158,965--was reported for the 46 officers employed by the Village of Lynbrook on Long Island. Among larger employers, the town of Clarkstown paid its 168 cops a state-leading average of $146,067. Six-figure average salaries were the norm for local police and firefighters throughout Long Island and the lower Mid-Hudson region.

- For general employees outside the police and fire pension system, the top average salary of $81,172 was paid by the Village of Old Westbury. Among counties, Westchester general employees were paid the highest statewide average salary at $69,607. Among cities, Yonkers topped the statewide list at $71,659. And among towns, the statewide leader was yet another Westchester jurisdiction--New Castle, at $67,126.

Source: Office of Personnel Management, 2010

Night shift differential means the differential paid for work performed when the majority of a prevailing rate employee's regularly scheduled nonovertime hours fall between 3 p.m. and 8 a.m. It is computed as a percentage of the employee's rate of basic pay.

Source: Center for Housing Policy, March 23, 2010

This online, interactive database is regularly updated and presents wage information for more than 60 occupations, as well as home prices and rents for nearly 200 metropolitan areas, allowing workers to see how their wages stack up against housing costs in their area.

Source: Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI), July 2010

From the summary:
A new PHI PolicyWorks analysis finds that a growing number of states report that personal and home care aides are receiving wages that put them at risk of poverty.

In 2009, 36 states reported average hourly wages that fell below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, up from 32 states in 2008, according to the analysis reported in PHI's updated State Chart Book on Wages for Personal and Home Care Aides (pdf).

Wages below 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($10.42) are low enough to qualify workers for many state and federal public assistance programs.

Source: By the National Employment Law Project for the Just Pay Working Group, July 2010

In this toolkit, we encourage community groups, worker centers, labor unions, and the public interest and private bar to reach out to local offices of the WHD and the SOL to build relationships and enter into collaborations. These arrangements can be mutually beneficial, helping both the agency and advocates fulfill their shared mission of protecting workers.

More specifically, this toolkit provides some helpful resources for advocates including: a brief overview of the roles and function of the WHD and the SOL; direction on how to set up a meeting with the agency; and some examples of historical collaborations between advocates and state and federal enforcement agencies. The Appendices contain talking points to use in meetings, additional examples of collaboration between community organizations and state and federal agencies, contact and key personnel information for WHD and SOL offices around the nation, a sample outreach letter to these agencies, and a scorecard for keeping track of progress around the country.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has developed an interactive state and county map application. The application displays geographic economic data through maps, charts, and tables, allowing users to explore employment and wage data of private industry at the National, State, and county level. Throughout this application, URLs are specific to the data displayed, so links can be bookmarked, reused, and shared. The application includes maps, charts, tables, and a link to standard BLS data tables and graphs.

Source: John Schmitt, Center for Economic and Policy Research, May 2010

From the summary:
State and local government budgets are under severe strain. Rather than blame the recession, which has simultaneously slashed tax revenues and increased the demand for social services, some conservatives have argued that excessive pay for public employees is the real cause of the financial woes. Several recent reports in the media have reinforced this view by emphasizing that, on average, government employees earn more than workers in the private sector. The problem with these analyses is that state and local government workers have much higher levels of formal education and are older (and therefore generally more experienced) than workers in the private sector. When state and local government employees are compared to private-sector workers with similar characteristics, state and local workers actually earn 4 percent less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts. This paper examines the wage penalty for working in the state-and-local sector.
See also:
- Press release
- Spreadsheet of Appendix Data
- The Benefits of Local and State Government Employees