Wages And Salaries

About an hour's drive from the New York skyscrapers that symbolize global commerce, a colossal financial disaster sprouted in a two-story, red-brick office building beside a Mobil gas station in suburban Connecticut. The AIG Financial Products Corp. headquarters here is the focus of public outrage over its payment of tens of millions of dollars in executive bonuses -- largely to employees of this once-obscure but well-fed unit, known internally as FP.

The chief executive for Los Angeles commercial real estate services company CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. saw his total compensation for 2008 fall 45% after he declined a performance-based bonus. CEO Brett White's total compensation fell to $3.3 million from about $6.1 million the year before, according to an Associated Press calculation based on a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Although Viacom Inc.'s stock took a beating in 2008, losing more than half its value, the media conglomerate's chairman, Sumner Redstone, and its chief executive, Philippe Dauman, earned pay raises for the year. Redstone was awarded a total compensation package valued at $12.1 million. Viacom said that given the decline in value of his stock options, Redstone's actual take-home pay was $6.3 million. In 2007, the chairman took home $8.3 million.

CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves' compensation package is kind of like "American Idol's" ratings. It may be down from last year, but it's still a pretty big number. Moonves' overall compensation, including stock and option awards, for 2008 was valued at about $32 million, compared with $36.8 million in 2007, according to the company's proxy report filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. His salary and bonus totaled $13 million, down from $23.8 million in 2007.

A Serbian union official who chopped off his finger and ate it in a protest over wages that in some cases have not been paid in years said Monday that he did it to show how desperate he and other workers were. "We, the workers, have nothing to eat. We had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example," Zoran Bulatovic said.

In December, Timothy Owner, a trombone player with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, called his landlord to tell her he might have trouble paying rent around May. He and the orchestra's 53 other full-time members, many of whom are paid less than $30,000 a year, had agreed to a monthlong furlough. The furlough, which ended Saturday, was rough, Owner said. But he and other musicians acknowledged that the alternative could have been worse.

The Treasury Department may release as early as next week its long-awaited ruling on how to limit pay for executives at firms bailed out by the federal government, two sources familiar with the deliberations said. Justice Department lawyers are currently reviewing the proposed limits. Executive compensation is a delicate political issue for the Obama administration.

Alarmed that University of California regents have raised executive salaries while boosting student fees, a group of state lawmakers Wednesday proposed stripping the UC system of its historic autonomy and giving legislators additional control. A constitutional amendment introduced by Sens. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) and three others would give legislators the ability to set policy for the university, including limits on pay raises.

More than half of California's state senators have agreed to reduce their $116,208 salary this year, most taking a 5% cut starting July 1. During budget negotiations last week, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) offered up 5% of his $133,639 pay and he also urged his 39 colleagues to follow suit as part of a cost-cutting package he called "responsive to the state's current crisis situation."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he would force state workers to take a third unpaid furlough day every month if lawmakers do not pass a balanced budget by Tuesday. The move came as another round of budget votes in the Legislature failed to produce a remedy for California's looming insolvency. Schwarzenegger said in a statement that in imposing an additional furlough day, he would be doing his part "to conserve cash so that the state can continue to operate."