Courtesy of Pam Martens.
President Obama Nominating Mary Jo White for Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, January 24, 2013
The Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation was signed into law five years ago to address the Wall Street abuses that led to the greatest financial crash since the Great Depression in 2008 and 2009. One of the requirements of that law was for the Securities and Exchange Commission to implement a rule making corporations publicly disclose the ratio of their CEO’s pay to the median worker’s pay.
Yesterday, after being publicly humiliated over not putting the law into force, the SEC finally adopted the rule. But it won’t go into effect until corporations complete their 2017 fiscal year, meaning it will be stalled for almost another three years.
Back on June 2, Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a scathing letter to SEC Chair Mary Jo White, berating her on a laundry list of broken promises. Warren told White: “You have now been SEC Chair for over two years, and to date, your leadership of the Commission has been extremely disappointing.” Among the long list of complaints was that the SEC Chair had failed to implement the CEO pay-ratio rule.
Two days ago, Richard Trumka, President of the 12.5 million member AFL-CIO, published an OpEd at CNN, furthering calling out the SEC for its foot-dragging. Trumka wrote:
“We have submitted a Freedom of Information Act request about the scheduling of final action on this rule. Nineteen organizations who represent investors and the public also submitted a letter in support of this request. In addition, petitions from more than 165,000 Americans demanding that the commission finally implement the CEO-to-worker pay rule were delivered to the SEC, and more than 1,000 calls placed as well.
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