'Fawn For The Bully's Favor ... This Is What's Happening At Verizon.'

Do you remember the schoolyard bully? More specifically, do you remember why none of the other kids in the schoolyard came to the victim's defense?

Instead, the audience usually rationalized that the victim somehow deserved what he was getting and that the bully's relative size, strength, and status among his peers automatically gave him the right to do whatever he wanted.

It was not unusual for members of the audience to shamelessly fawn for the bully's favor by encouraging or participating in the bullying.

This is what's happening at Verizon.

A tiny percentage of Americans like Ivan Seidenberg are compensated like Saudi princes not because they are vastly more productive than their employees, but simply because they possess the power to take what they want.

They employ two basic strategies to justify their behavior: They claim that their compensation is commensurate with other executives who also possess the power to take what they want, and they pander to the unemployed, the underemployed, and vast numbers of grossly underpaid Americans in an effort to make them jealous and resentful of union workers.

This second strategy is especially effective in a culture where many Americans simultaneously display both a slovenly worship of the wealthy and powerful, and a willingness to sell out their own mothers for the chance to "shamelessly fawn for the bully's favor."

Many Americans would rather vent their petty jealousies at a neighbor who earns two or three times what they do than criticize a living deity like Ivan Seidenberg who received two or three hundred times the yearly salary of most of his union represented employees.

Consider the following: Page 44 of the Verizon 10-K report for the year 2010 includes the "Compensation Tables" for the company's top executives.

They indicate that Ivan Seidenberg received $18,166,006 in 2010 and similar amounts in 2008 and 2009. That’s more than 200 times what one of Verizon’s union represented technicians received even when shift differentials and overtime are included. Without a shift differential and overtime, Seidenberg's compensation is closer to 300 times that of his employees.

Broken down to figures that ordinary people can relate to, Seidenberg received $349,346 per week or about $8,733 per hour.

Remember this figure the next time a company spokesman complains about union wages and please remind the fawning peanut gallery to ask why they are not receiving a bigger piece of the pie that they helped to create.

Benjamin Demille