“Caterpillar has pioneered a two-tier wage system in which workers hired after a certain date are consigned to a significantly lower wage scale than others and it recently pressed its longer-term employees into accepting a six year wage freeze. Many Caterpillar workers ask why the company insisted on a pay freezer when it reported repeated record profits-$5.7 billion last year, amounting to $45,000 per Caterpillar employee. Caterpillar’s chief executive, Douglas Oberhelman (whose compensation has increased more than 80 percent over the last two years) says the freeze was vital to keep wages competitive with rival companies. “I always try to communicate to our people that we can never make enough money”, he recently told Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “We can never make enough profit.”
Steven Greenhouse, “Fighting Back Against Wretched Wages.” New York Times. July 28, 2013
