I am a Union worker in wireline.
I have been trying to consider things from Lowell Mcadam's point of view; after all he is a human being too, and someone has to lead our company.
It is hard for me to relate to someone like him, because his salary is so large, that I feel if I worked only 1 year at that rate, I would retire from work, pay off my house, pay off my creditors, pay off my wife, pay off everybody, provide for my children, give some to charity, and take up oil painting.
I suppose I think like a peasant.
I think we all agree that the CEO who leads our company should be paid more than the average worker, no question about it. If there is any question, it is only a question of proportion, maybe it is not that CEOs are being paid too much, but that others are not being paid enough. Every citizen who comes to work every day and does their job deserves our respect. I recently spoke with a lawyer who advocates for workers in nursing homes. Listening to her description of the conditions in some of these residences, and of the very low wages paid to workers there, I couldn't help but think what a shame it is on our society that we warehouse human beings so cheaply, while such exorbitant wages are paid elsewhere, just thinking about it from an allocation of resources point of view, can't we do better than this?
I think when you consider his high pay, and our celebrity culture, maybe our CEO is not so bad. He at least does not wear a futuristic pink spacesuit like T-Mobile's Legere. It is a bad idea however to have CEO's feel that they are more important personally than the President of the United States. That was not the thinking of the Old Company we all worked for.
I think maybe Lowell is not so much a bad CEO, the problem is he has a conflict of interest. He may be a good CEO for wireless, but he is a terrible CEO for wireline. Maybe you can't blame him. Maybe to be the best wireless CEO, you would try to kill wireline. It only makes sense right?
The best solution would be to divide the company, to allow Lowell to work in wireless which is his wheelhouse, and let someone else run wireline. Really it should probably be two separate companies.
Our nation needs both wireless and wireline. I hope the company will be sold or divided before more damage is done.