Briefcase
CEOs average 27 percent pay increase in fiscal year
LOS ANGELES – American CEOs raked in fat paychecks last year, as head honchos netted a median 27 percent increase in compensation in fiscal year 2010.
Top executives from the S&P 500 scored a median 36.5 percent bump in realized compensation after two years of pay declines in 2008 and 2009, according to the ninth annual report from research group GMI.
The total chief executive earnings, calculated from more than 3,200 proxy statements, include base salary, pension and retirement plan payments, exercised options and more.
Among the list of the top 10 highest-paid executives – all men – three came from health care companies and four were collecting exit packages from retirement or termination.
Los Angeles Times
Minimum wage ordered for home-care aides
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama circumvented Congress and moved Thursday to require that home-care aides be paid minimum wage and overtime, giving the fast-growing workforce long-sought assistance.
Home care workers, who now number close to 2 million people, have been exempted from federal labor law since 1974.
And although many states have rules guaranteeing home care workers minimum wage, overtime or both, 29 states do not offer these protections.
“I can tell you firsthand that these men and women, they work their tails off, and they don’t complain,” the president said. “They deserve to be treated fairly. They deserve to be paid fairly for a service that many older Americans couldn’t live without.”
Even advocates for home-care workers acknowledge that relatively few workers currently make less than the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour.
But the proposed rules could be particularly important for workers who have multiple clients because, for the first time, they would require many aides to be paid for travel time between their patients’ homes, said Steven Edelstein, national policy director of PHI PolicyWorks, a national advocate for home-care workers.
Tribune Washington bureau
Hulu launches Spanish programming service
LOS ANGELES – Hoping to attract a rapidly growing U.S. Latino audience, online video site Hulu has launched a Spanish-language programming service with popular shows from networks Univision, Estrella TV and Azteca America.
“The demographics of the U.S. Latino audience are very interesting to us, and until now there was so little Spanish-language content available online in an aggregated form,” said Andy Forssell, senior vice president of content at Hulu, based in Santa Monica, Calif.
Spanish-language programming will be available on the free Hulu site and through the Hulu Plus subscription service.
Los Angeles Times