The Twisted Reality of Rick, Al and Bob

The CEO’s of the Big Three auto makers have all proclaimed that they will only take $1/year salary if Congress saves their collective asses.  I’m not impressed.  Isn’t it interesting that they all seem to be taking it for granted that they will keep their jobs?  Unless they can demonstrate convincingly that they had gotten their respective companies on a credible path to success but for the current economic crisis, they should be headed out the door with no parachute of any color. 

Who, exactly, can afford to work for $1/year?  Only someone who’s been sucking hard at the teat of the cash cow for a good, long while.  Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO of GM, took the reins in 2000, having joined the company in 1977.  Is anyone willing to consider that he has risen beyond his level of competence?  

Alan Mullaly, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company, joined Ford in 2006 after holding a number of senior executive roles at Boeing and its subsidiaries.  Robert Nardelli became Chairman and CEO of Chrysler in August, 2007.  Prior to that he had been President and CEO of Home Depot for six years.  His compensation for leaving Home Depot was a reported $210M (that’s capital-M-for-Million) package of cash, stock options, and retirement benefits.

For the sake of argument, let’s give Rick, Al, and Bob the benefit of the doubt and assume they deserve to keep their jobs.  Is the $1/year salary appropriate?  I would have liked to hear them offer to take a total compensation package equivalent to that of an entry-level worker in their own company.  Salary based on the entry-level hourly wage, same benefits, same paid holidays, same Employee Stock Purchase Plan, if their company has one.  And I’d like to see them try to live on that, too.  Now, wouldn’t that make a great TV reality show?