In March 1992 I started working for an up and coming software company in Atlanta, Georgia. This company was the typical success story, privately held and the brainchild of two enterprising guys. I joined this company as a Director of Information Services, joining mostly due to my personal knowledge of the company as a fast growing company in the Atlanta area, but also because of their national ranking over many years as a rapidly growing technology company.

The last major U.S. recession was ending in 1992, and no sooner had I walked in the door then I realized that my new corporate home had deep self-inflicted wounds from that recession. Instead of marshalling cash reserves the CEO and CFO, brought in to grow the company, had gone on a shopping spree at the recession fire sale buying companies that had been weakened by the recession. Now they found themselves with declining sales and deeply depleted cash reserves.

I did my part to try and turn things around, in one case initiating a critical system tuning that saved the company a half-million dollars and kept their development process running. Nevertheless it became clear that the company was going down, and each morning became an adventure. Would the company itself be bought at a recession fire sale or would the doors one day be padlocked? By Thanksgiving Day of 1992 the word came that a competitor would indeed buy our company, close down our operation while keeping our installed customer base.

The Golden Parachutes for the CEO and CFO, who were primarily responsible for running the company into the rocks, were over several million dollars. At the same time over 350 American workers were handed their walking papers and sent out into a recession devastated economy.

That was then and this is now.

Delta Airlines CEO Leo Mullin in 2002 received salary of $795,000, a $1.4 million bonus, $2.03 million of restricted stock, $456,066 of long-term incentive payments, $84,834 of other compensation, and $8.21 million in the form of options (approximate dollar value).

Delta has set a goal to cut 7000-8000 American jobs by Spring 2003, and has lost arbitration in their bid to cut many Delta pilots even though they have an employment contract. Delta Airlines employs over 6000 staff in India and the Philippines handling reservations and customer services…all employees paid at a fraction of the original American workforce.

IBM CEO Sam Palmisano earned $1.4 in salary and was given a $4.5 million bonus for 2002, and outgoing Chairman Lou Gerstner took home more than $16.3 million in pay, bonus and stock grants. IBM will be slashing more than 15,600 jobs in America, and investing nearly $4 billion for facilities and staff in China.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina got a bonus of nearly $3 million in 2002 and made a salary of $1 million. H-P continues to cut their American workforce in reaction to their merger with Compaq and their reduced revenues. Their 3000 plus staff in India will be expanded, at a fraction of the American workforce cost.

Corporate America’s leadership marches on equipped with excessive compensation packages and protected by the Golden Parachute. Meanwhile the American worker, protected only by the U.S. Constitution and over 200 years of middle-class building history, is in deep trouble.

Apparently cost cutting within the corporate workforce, whether through shipping jobs and factories overseas to Third World economies or by importing Third World workers to this country trumps everything. Exporting jobs and importing workers has become a standard on corporate America’s list of mission critical goals.

The old American standard of increased productivity to offset higher salary cost has been cast aside out of sheer laziness. The old morality of care for your workforce and their families has been lost to the grand illusion of the "new job creating power" of the American economy, a convenient and risk free dodge. American factory workers fell for that one when their lost manufacturing jobs were turned into Technology "opportunities". Those "opportunities" are now following the path of their original manufacturing jobs, out of the country.

What is the American worker to do?

The American worker has only one card to play and that card comes up in 2004. Make American jobs and a return to an American wage the number one issue of the next election cycle. No one, from the President of the United States down the line to local representatives, should be given a pass on this. Current office holders that refuse to put American workers first need to find a new job regardless of their political affiliations. A Republican selling out the American worker is no different then a Democrat selling out the American worker. They are either with the U.S. worker or they against us.

Corporate America has been given the Golden Parachute; the American worker needs to stop taking the lead balloon.