Statement of New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento on CEO pay including at Verizon

New York - "It is timely that while support continues to grow for members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in their fight against Verizon's corporate greed – a new AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch exposes the pay inequality between CEOs and average workers. According to the PayWatch website, the average CEO of an S&P 500 company here in New York State made 304 times more than the average rank-and-file worker. Overall in New York State, the average CEO of an S&P 500 company made $15.3 million per year in 2015 while the average rank-and-file worker made $50,451 per year. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam did much better than average making $18.3 million in 2015. Yet his company wants to ship more good jobs overseas, outsource work to low-wage contractors and transfer workers away from their families for months at a time. It is what has provoked the strike by 39,000 working men and women, including 15,000 here in New York State - the same working people who helped to make Verizon so profitable. The data on the PayWatch website is glaring. We know here in the New York State that the best way to get ahead is by belonging to a union which is why the New York State AFL-CIO is always pushing back fighting for solid middle class jobs. We will continue to expose corporate greed and efforts by companies like Verizon to outsource our jobs."  More information on CEO-to-worker pay disparity and inequality among S&P 500 companies can be found at www.paywatch.org