RedState has posted an interesting piece in response to this press release from the AFL-CIO: In 2010, Standard & Poor’s 500 Index company CEOs received, on average, $11.4 million in total compensation. Based on 299 companies’ most recent pay data for 2010, their combined total CEO pay of $3.4 billion could support 102,325 median workers’ jobs. RedState did its own math and calculated that American unions collect $8.8 billion in dues annually, based on 14.7 million unionized workers paying an estimate average of $50/month in dues. Applying AFL-CIO logic to those numbers, union dues collected in this country could create 265,447 “median workers jobs” or over double the number created by forcing all corporate executive officers to work for free. Of course, two steps forward and one back — if unions stopped collecting dues tomorrow that move would cost the American economy the jobs of ten of thousands of six figure union VPs, EB members, Comm directors and assorted other essential officials while seriously damaging union dependent suppliers here and abroad impacting particularly hard the confetti cannon, drum circle and tee shirt printing industries as well as, of course, Hilde Solis and the NLRB. Oh yes, and Danny Glover.
