Lots of IT people cut in Columbus
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@3n1t AEP CEO Bill Fehrman was the highest-paid utility executive in the country in 2025, earning $36.6 million. That’s a significant jump from the year before, with his compensation increasing by $23.3 million, largely driven by stock awards tied to long-term company performance.
To put that in perspective, the average worker in Ohio would need about 550 years to earn what Fehrman made in a single year, based on federal wage data.
@3mm5 A new report examining executive compensation across the utility sector shows continued increases in pay for top industry leaders in 2025.
The Energy and Policy Institute found that investor-owned electric and gas utilities paid a combined 626 million dollars to their chief executives last year. The report also indicates average CEO compensation reached 12.4 million dollars, marking an increase of nearly 16 percent compared to 2024.
Among the companies analyzed, American Electric Power reported the highest total compensation package. CEO Bill Fehrman received approximately 36.6 million dollars in 2025, according to the Energy and Policy Institute.
The report attributes a large portion of that increase to stock-based incentives designed to reward long-term financial performance and shareholder returns.
Researchers also found that since 2017, average utility CEO compensation has increased by 47 percent, outpacing broader wage growth trends.
@3mga The real electric utility employees need to form their own company and abandon the private equity firm grift that enriches major shareholders and impoverishes and endangers everyone else. American Electric Power is no more. American Electric Private Equity is a self-serving shameful get rich sham.
@3mex It takes five suits with three legs in the drawers and proven records of success to undo damage caused by "visionaries" with bobbed style haircuts that hate electric companies and the people that work at them. Keep them coming BF!
@3mex The proliferation of duplication ensures the survival of the duplicitous bureaucratic bloat.
Former Statement
'We need to reduce bureaucracy'
Ooh! I know! Let's hire 30 new execs from outside the company! Said NO ONE.
Corporate America is achieving record, historic profits—reaching $4.35 TRILLION in early 2026—by aggressively prioritizing investor returns over labor, leading to a widening gap between company earnings and worker compensation. While navigating economic challenges, firms are utilizing high-price strategies, limiting staff growth, and increasing automation to boost margins.
The New York Times
Key Aspects of the Trend:
Record Profits vs. Worker Pay: Corporate profits have grown 107% since 2000, while employee compensation increased by only 28% after inflation. Wages currently make up the lowest share of GDP on record.
Facebook
Layoffs Despite Profits: Many companies are reducing headcount and utilizing AI, not due to financial distress, but to maximize efficiency and profits.
Medium
The "Double Gap": A significant portion of workers lack basic benefits, including 28% without retirement benefits, 73% without paid family leave, and 20% without paid sick leave.
YouTube
The CEO-Worker Gap: CEOs at large firms now earn an average of 312 times more than their average worker, up from 20 times more in 1965.
U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (.gov)
Increased Productivity Demands: Executives are aggressively tracking "revenue per employee," forcing existing staff to handle more work without adding headcount.
@3kz0 No, by default you only have access to your building during your standard hours. If you need access on nights or weekends, your manager will have to approve that (via the “PAM” system, I believe).
WAGES: Workers Against Greed Enabling Solicitation
Prospectors aspire to be rich and yet the precious ore they discover always becomes someone else's wealth.
@3kz0 Card readers for accessing immense wealth?
Increasing shareholder value is more important than time with your family. Your family adds nothing to shareholder value.
An employee truly dedicated to shareholder value never retires, the expire toiling to enhance the wealth of their betters.
Giving to our glorious PAC enables shareholders to amass greater wealth while depriving everyone else of the opportunity to achieve their American Dream. A small sacrifice to make shareholders lives grander.
Employees only squander wealth on food, clothing, shelter and unnecessary luxuries like health and dental insurance. Forgo such extravagant luxuries for shareholder value.
Sleeping is unproductive hours depriving shareholders of greater value. You can sleep after you expire.
A employee truly dedicated to shareholder value would let his family starve to enhance corporate profits.
Fewer employees shouldering an ever increasing workload for less compensation is the maxim of increasing shareholder value. Ignore those pains in your chest, sense of dread, mental fatigue, loss of enthusiasm for life and occupational exhaustion. Our shareholders are counting on you to make their lives grander and it is a small sacrifice for serving your betters.
This is no joke. This is the MAGA corporate culture end game. The only unknown is how long will it take them to indoctrinate, assimilate and subjugate you to their MAGA madness. Remember enabled racism, s-xism, xenophobia and hazing are you reward for surrendering your sovereignty as an American to our glorious shareholders.
Do the card readers on the doors work over the weekends?
Need to get extra work done...
The top 10% of Americans own 93% of all stocks and the wealth they amass. Shareholder primacy is rabid economic capitalism where the wealthiest Americans race each other to steal the last crumb of food from the last living hungry child in America.
Shareholder primacy fails America by prioritizing short-term stock prices over long-term investment, leading to underinvestment in workers and innovation, widening wealth inequality, and fostering corporate misconduct. This narrow focus on maximizing profit for investors, dominant for four decades, often neglects customer value, employee wages, and sustainable environmental practices, harming the overall economy.
The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance +4
HARVARD has spoken.
@3kft The sooner you go there the better.
They hiring in Cuba, Mexico, Canada, and Iran. Is there something wrong with those places?
We are tired of the MAGA corporate culture hamster wheel from he-l.
@3jsj Adversity tempers fortitude until it becomes too intense and then it makes it brittle.
@3jmy sounds like my experience. Horrible situation to be in and job market even worse, so having to drag myself in every day. Not sure how much longer I can take it!
High blood pressure, chest pains, trouble sleeping, Sunday evening dread, occupational exhaustion, deteriorating relationship with your family, no enthusiasm for life it is time to walk away with no regret and no guilt. The journey is no longer worth the destination you will arrive at as a empty husk of a human being so the CEO and major shareholders can have a better life they have neither earned nor deserve. Corporate has reneged on the promises that were made when we came to work here and the destination falls far short of the mark. You determine your value not the CEO of this company or the corporate board and if they can't afford you then walk away. There is worse things in life than staring over like not having the time to start over.
@3j5q BF: Betray the Founders of our nation and our company. There can be no more befitting a moniker for AEP's CEO.
@3j5q All you little aspiring CEOs must be so proud of yourselves. Betraying their very founding of your nation for self-serving self-aggrandizement. The late King George III would be so proud of his conspiring Tories undoing the American Revolution with each rung they climb up the corporate oligarchy's ladder to abject and abominable immense wealth authoritarian tyranny.
@3j5q At least the teenage girls had the virtue and good sense to realize what was being done to them was evil and wrong.
BF is my hero. A straight sho-ter that worked his way up through hard work vision. Didn't need DEI quotas or a s-b story, just a vision of hard work and common sense. 💯 🙌
@3hyn Toxic corporate culture has become unhealthy for employees and their families.
Why is there so many job openings at AEP right now? Is it because the company is growing or people leaving?
Fehrman' s Farce is wearing thin and employees see an Eronesque Future where the successful electric utility we built collapses from the siphoning of profits to enrich him and his oligarch major shareholders. Vague goals allow CEO compensation to rise while employee's compensation falls far short of inspiring the resolute pursuit of success. Why succeed when in the end we fail to benefit from our achievements and are rewarded with increasing workloads as more employees abandon the oars rowing Ferhman's Farce forward on its course to self-destruction.
@3ezr We are just surviving. Everyone is overworked. We desperately need like 4 or 5 more people to stop working 50-60 hour work weeks, but it's too expensive and won't be approved. In my area we have all been here more than a decade and most over 2 decades and as we retire over the next 3-5 years there doesn't appear to be a real plan to replace us beyond investing in AI. We all agree the work environment has changed negatively and know that jumping ship won't necessarily land us somewhere better so we are just hoping to hang on to retire gracefully and to not keel over at the office.
@3hd3 When they get rid of the employees with the knowledge, experience and courage to tell them to their face when they are wrong, they are setting themselves up for failure and everyone else pays for it. Funny, they still get their 100% bonuses and raises and they still manage to tank our ICP. Kind of makes one think they rigged the culture in their favor and are going to make certain it stays that way. Is the Return On Investment for stakeholders and employee shareholders worth the aggravation and risk? Only time will tell. I would wager the employees, who left, retired or were forced out would not trade places with us.
Exactly just like here in Texas we lost our president and a few good people with her. Next thing you know..a fatal accident occurred right after! We need to slow down. People are stressed from all the new projects thrown at us, the random leadership changes and the constant reorganizing of our groups. The AEP leadership running the company needs to slow down. People are going into work tired and stressed out. And they want to say safety is key! Yet here we all distraught filling positions under short notice because they want to keep letting good people go for "Progress" or "Future change"
@3gxe Major shareholder value seems awfully insignificant right about now.
When employees job security is uncertain, their finances are strained, their workload is overwhelming and their families are struggling, their focus is fragmented like a kaleidoscope and their attention to detail on the job suffers. Chaos may be profitable for corporations and political parties, however, it is dangerous and deadly for employees.
@3gj0 Tax payer funded corporate welfare is precisely what is making this company great again. $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
A federal loan guarantee works by having a government agency pledge to repay a private lender a significant portion (often 80%-90% or more) of a borrower's loan if they default. This reduces risk for lenders, allowing borrowers to access lower interest rates and, in many cases, financing that would otherwise be unavailable.
USDA (.gov) +4
Key Mechanisms of Federal Loan Guarantees:
Default Protection: If a borrower defaults on a loan (e.g., in housing, business, or education), the government reimburses the lender for a percentage of the loss.
Lower Rates: Since the government bears the risk, lenders often offer lower interest rates to borrowers.
Process: Private sector or state lenders make the loans using their own funds, but the federal government acts as the guarantor.
Examples: Examples include Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans for homebuyers, USDA Rural Development loans for businesses, and historically, the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program for students.
USDA (.gov) +4
Key Participants:
Borrower: The individual or entity (e.g., student, veteran, small business) seeking capital.
Lender: A private bank or financial institution that provides the loan.
Federal Agency: The entity providing the guarantee (e.g., DOE, HUD, USDA).
Acquisition.GOV (.gov) +4
Advantages and Limitations:
Economic Growth: By reducing lender risk, these programs stimulate investment in sectors such as housing, energy, and small business.
Taxpayer Risk: If a significant number of borrowers default, the government must make good on those guarantees, which can incur high costs.
Strict Standards: Despite the guarantee, lenders often require borrowers to meet specific eligibility standards.
USDA (.gov) +4
Often, the government charges a fee to the borrower or lender to cover expected losses, helping the program to be self-sustaining.
U.S. Government Accountability Office (.gov)
Taxpayers are co-signing the $1.6 Billion Loan Guarantee. What are the chances AEP fails to repay some or all of the loan to enhance major shareholder value? You do not get rich from working hard. You get rich from scamming the people working hard to pay taxes and their electric bills. Keep telling yourself you are a self-made wealthy individual and pray we keep paying our taxes and our electric bills.
@3g80 Let's remove your brand of people that needed PlayDoh, crayon safe-spaces, and tax-payer welfare to make this a great company again.
Have raised already been communicated?
@3g80 Corporate leadership was the problem all along and they were blaming well-adjusted employees for their wealth and power amplified character flaws.
@3g71 Based on your analysis Artificial Intelligence could also replace corporate boards further enhancing shareholder value and remove the necessity of DEI programs by eliminating conservative cronyism. This could potentially be the end of toxic corporate cultures and occupational exhaustion. When you remove the white male privilege from the equation corporate leadership actually could be beneficial to all.
@3g0f Artificial Intelligence has no ego, knows no greed, cannot be manipulated by fawning subordinates, does not engage in social cliques or favoritism, does not embrace racism. s-xism. xenophobia or class stratification, making it the perfect example of corporate leadership.
@3g0f When there is a vacuum of human intelligence leading America's corporations Artificial Intelligence fills the void and dramatically increases shareholder value by eliminating the greatest profit drain afflicting Corporate America, CEO compensation.