Golden Parachutes

The issue of golden parachutes is about company figures, usually executives, receiving large amounts of money or stock options when they leave, something very foreign to many workers who could be terminated for minor or illusory offenses.  Most arguments for or against golden parachutes really have the basis of assumed ideas--like that the incoming CEO, who can arrange for a golden parachute beforehand, will leave because of misconduct and thus a parting gift would be immoral--or false ones--like that CEOs are just so instrumental to a company that there is no proportionality or limitation on how much they would deserve to be paid, even upon their departure.  Regardless, losing an executive position is softened immensely by such measures.

A CEO, not that golden parachutes have to be exclusively given to them, might destroy a company's profitability, reputation, or culture and then leave while receiving more money than most employees would ever earn across their entire career.  Then, they might obtain another executive role and repeat their same ideological, moral, or pragmatic mistakes, perhaps gaining another golden parachute on their way out.  There is a degree of distinctive double standard in how some executives and general employees are treated in the corporate world of a society like America, and severance is relevant.  Typically, an ordinary employee would not get severance for misconduct termination as opposed to resignation or a layoff, and even then it is hardly enough to retire on, but executives tend to be paid far better while actively working and when leaving.

For example, Roger Ailes of Fox News received 40 million dollars for his 2016 resignation as an executive in response to sexual harassment charges.  It is not that an executive will always by logical necessity be some heinously tyrannical or incompetent person who will inevitably leave because of moral or pragmatic problems of their own making, but that even such people are in a sense rewarded or given far more than is necessary to survive.  Yes, other more positive or neutral functions of a golden parachute could be intended.  It could be used to persuade an executive from another company to switch organizations or to deter hostile takeovers.  If the acquiring company would have to pay extreme amounts of money upon the exit of the then-former executive, the takeover might not be as appealing anymore.

Still, executive overcompensation is reported to be a major problem in America, even aside from the entire subject of golden parachutes.  Executives do not work 300-400 times harder than employees designated manual labor or consumer-facing positions despite receiving up to this many more times the money, and their often incredible compensation already alleviates much of the stress over the literal survival or basic comfort that other people might labor for because they have to.  Is there anything, say, Biblically immoral about taking care of high-level leadership?  No, but this kind of disproportionality is logically invalid and would be morally unmerited, especially when it comes at the expense of paying workers at or above a truly livable wage/salary.

For a valid reason, many common employees will not be enriched with millions of dollars if they step down from their positions.  Departure is not something that deserves this amount of money.  Whether it is used to mitigate the risk for an incoming executive who is in turn leaving a separate company for the role, to make it easier to get rid of unwanted executives quickly and relatively quietly, or for with other motivation, the way golden parachutes are handled in America is extremely disproportionate by default--this is already on top of their base executive pay--and can end up directly benefitting someone for doing little to no work or for a legitimate scandal outing them.  Only one of these issues is inherent to the general structure of golden parachutes in my culture at this time, and it is a significant flaw.