Union questions auto execs' pay packages

Mulally defended his pay package to reporters last summer, saying, "All the skills required to run a business are market-driven."

Pay packages at U.S. automakers don't stand out compared with those at other U.S. companies. The median 2006 compensation for CEOs at 50 of the largest U.S. companies was $17.8 million, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from Salary.com's CompAnalyst Executive database. Packages included salary, bonus, perks and stock and options awards.

But U.S. executive pay outpaces that of Asian companies, including Asian automakers.

Detroit automakers have focused on the gap between their hourly workers and those of the non-union foreign automakers in the USA. Union workers say the executive pay gap should be examined, as well.

"There is a huge difference between Asia and here when it comes to the top executive compensation," says Han Kim, a professor of business administration at the University of Michigan. "Rarely in Asia, especially Japan and Korea, do the CEOs get paid more than a million dollars."

Japanese companies are not required to break out salaries and bonuses for top executives. Instead, they lump them together. Last year, Toyota's top 37 executives earned a combined $21.6 million in salary and bonuses, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. U.K. firm Manifest Information Services, which analyzes proxy information, estimates Toyota's top executive, Hiroshi Okuda, earned $903,000 in 2006.

At Honda, the top 21 earned $11.1 million, combined, in salary and bonuses, SEC filings show.

"There is this huge gap between the average worker and the CEO, and the gap is greatest in the U.S.," Kim says. "That kind of thing might work where individual work counts the most, but in the manufacturing sector, it's all about teamwork."

It's difficult to get a precise comparison because Japanese companies are not required to include perks. "It's a very tough comparison to make," says David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research. The perks given to Japanese executives can include homes, chauffeurs, country club memberships. In the USA, "our disclosure on things like this is pretty complete. The first inclination is to say there's this huge difference, but I don't think that's true."