Workers need relief from gas prices

"We work for the shareholders. Our job is to go out and make the most money for those people.We're in the business to make money."

Exxon Mobil Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson on NBC's "Today" May 3

Rex Tillerson's honesty is shocking and refreshing in today's culture of corporate greed and lying executives. If only we could get chief executives to be smart and honest!

With gas prices hovering around $3 a gallon and experts predicting more increases over the summer, working families are being squeezed yet again.

Teamster Mike Gluba, 45, commutes about 10 miles roundtrip each day from his home in Taylor to his job at Hertz Rent A Car at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. The drive used to cost him $15 a week in his eight-year-old Ford van. He now pays $35.

Price hikes hurt workers

"It's becoming such a struggle," says Gluba, who earns about $40,000 a year. "I work my butt off at Hertz, but the 50 cents an hour raise I got this year just doesn't come close to keeping up with gas and other costs. If I didn't have a union, I'd be in bad shape."

Salary.com, an online compensation analyst, found that an average American worker like Gluba spends 3.3 percent of his salary on gas to commute roundtrip to work. In places where gas prices are higher, like here in Detroit, some commuters are already spending 4.6 percent of their salary on gas.

With inflation increasing faster than wages, 3.3 percent versus 2.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, increasing gas prices are eroding whatever minimal wage gains workers are seeing. And companies hit by high fuel prices will start cutting deeper into workers' wages and benefits.

Despite this, neither gas company executives nor the federal government seem to care.

All Tillerson and his oil buddies seem to care about is the bottom line. His predecessor got paid an average of $144,573 a day and, when he left, he got a $98 million pension check. Last year, gas and oil companies made record profits. Sounds like price gouging to me.

CEO compensation grows

The gas companies seem to have forgotten that workers are also consumers. They continue to let greed serve as their modus operandi for running their companies.

Last year, average chief executive pay rose 27 percent, up to $11.3 million, according to a recent survey by Pearl Meyer & Partners. That's 300 times more than the average worker earns.

But workers are fed up with these abuses. Almost 81 percent of Americans say they think the chief executives of large companies are overpaid, according to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey conducted in February.

That's why we are fighting back in a way that CEOs understand -- we are taking our fights to the board room, using our power as shareholders to rein them in. Shareholder resolutions on executive compensation are gaining traction at shareholder meetings.

The Teamsters recently won our resolution empowering Coca-Cola Co. shareholders to approve all severance package agreements that amount to 2.99 times the annual salary plus bonus.

Government fails to act

And we're ready to show our elected officials who are letting this crisis happen know how we feel about them too.

Gluba, like many Americans, blames the president. A national CBS News/New York Times poll this week found that 87 percent of Americans disapprove of how President Bush is handling the gasoline issue. And the public quickly shot down the Republicans' recent $100 hush money offer -- I mean rebate offer.

Since the president won't lift a finger to give Americans relief at the pump, Congress should immediately repeal oil and gas tax giveaways to energy companies worth more than $10 billion over the next five years. House and Senate Democrats have rightly called for a windfall profit tax on oil firms that avoids taxing exploration and development of new production.

In addition, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., has proposed suspending the federal gas and diesel taxes for 60 days, which would reduce the price by 18 cents a gallon for gas and 24 cents a gallon for diesel. Taxing the surging oil profits will easily make up the lost revenue.

The gas crisis may be the straw that breaks the camel's back, creating a mass uproar over the ever-growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. There is power in solidarity, and working families have the numbers.