Janet Robinson

In another sign that our major institutions are out of touch, journalistic sentinel The New York Times is giving its CEO Janet Robinson a $4.5 million dollar “golden parachute” while demanding a 26 percent pay decrease from the union workforce that assembles the paper. Comically, this comes at a time when the NYT editorial board is calling for restraint in CEO pay.

Nothing says 2011 quite like demanding a pay cut from the 99% while dumping easy money on an executive. Arthur DeIanni, President of the Allied Printing Trades Council of NY and of New York Mailers’ Union Local 6 issued the following statement::

“The Times likes to slam CEO excess, until they are the ones doing it. It is offensive to the hard-working men and women who make sure the Times is ready for delivery to millions of people throughout the NYC metropolitan region that the board of the Times would give Janet Robinson a $4.5 million golden parachute while offering a 26% pay cut to middle-class Times workers.

“The Times management should listen to its editorial board, which has criticized skyrocketing CEO pay, saying: ‘It is clear that C.E.O. pay has skyrocketed while workers’ pay has stagnated; it is also clear that skewed pay and rising income inequality correlate to bubbles and crashes.’
“We remain willing to sit down and discuss a reasonable settlement to this labor dispute. Hopefully, Times management can take a relatively small part of Robinson’s golden parachute and use it to pay middle-class Times workers a fair wage.”

The New York Times editorial board is made up of some of our nation’s brightest minds. Perhaps the paper should heed its own advice.