Ellen Goodman: Bob the Un-Builder

lefty · **Posted:** Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:24 pm

Quote:

BOSTON—It’s safe to say that Bob Nardelli was never confused with Bob the Builder, the cartoon character who teaches teamwork to the kids: “Can we fix it? Yes we can!”

Home Depot has a similar slogan—“You can do it. We can help”—but the former CEO was more of a do-it-for-himself kind of guy.

By the time Bob the Un-Builder hung up his orange apron, the Home Depot stock had gone down 6 percent in six years. Nevertheless, he left with $210 million in his pocket, thereby becoming another in the burgeoning line of CEOs Gone Wild.

The money Bob got just for going was over and above his annual compensation, a number that hit $38.1 million in 2005, roughly $100,000 a day.

This is not going to be a rant about CEO salaries, although a rant is in order. We all know about the growing inequality of income. In 1965, the average CEO was paid 24 times the average worker. In 2005, the average CEO was paid 262 times the average worker.

It’s taken 12 years and a new Congress just to get the minimum wage moving up to $7.25 an hour over the next two years. At Home Depot, where the average wage is $10 an hour, the boss made more every day than workers earned in a year.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200 ... n_builder/

MACTANK · **Joined:** Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:57 pm **Posts:** 57

Seems to me that Home Depot is going the way of KMart, Builders Square, and Heckingers (Home Quarters)

Catherine · **Posted:** Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:26 pm

[url=http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/super_union_merger_in_the_works/]Super Union’ Merger in the Works
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While this isn't about Bob the Un-Builder, it's an interesting story about another MEG about to be born. Is this good or bad?

Britain’s biggest union will meet with the United Steel Workers, a North American organization, to discuss the possibility of a merger. The resulting international mega-union would be one of the largest in the world. The head of the British group has previously expressed a desire to form “a single global trade union movement capable of challenging the might of multinationals.”

BBC:

Although there are different labour laws in other countries, a super union could put pressure on companies and their managers, he added.

On some issues, for example pay, it would be possible to co-ordinate strikes at a company with plants in Britain and America.

Amicus is already set to expand next month when it merges with the Transport and General Workers Union (T&G), making it the country’s biggest union.

Previously, [Amicus General Secretary Derek] Simpson has spoken of creating “a single global trade union movement capable of challenging the might of multinationals”.

DO.g's · **Joined:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 6:19 pm **Posts:** 2533

Anything Union is the Workers only defense right now. Perhaps it could apply to become a person, like corporations and take them on head to head in the courts. Who would win when each can afford to sue the other? Corporations are tentacled around the world to escape pressures from unions and organized labour. It's time that this was proposed and applied! It was inevitable and hopefully unstoppable.

If the Corps can become a giant international union of conglomerates, then so can we!
Union union union!!! LOVED Norma Rae!

Get the greedy slime before they have all of us in their tidy little web, controlling every aspect of our daily lifestyle choices and jobs!

May the corporations eventually eat each other so we can start over again, free and independant to make our own choices about what we want and how we get it. Living in a modern feudal system of company owned stores and homes is not an eventuality that they should assume is their right to only possess. No way they have the right to lie, cheat and steal from us and our lives for their growth and our death.

That's why we have unions and fought so hard for them!!!

Ellen Goodman: Bob the Un-Builder

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