Googling, Ford has about 45,000 UAW employees. Average pay is $28 per hour. At 2k hours per year, a UAW employee makes $56,000 gross.
Mulally's pay cut amounts to about $6.5 million per year, which is the equivalent of 116 UAW workers' gross pay.
Some folks advocate dropping UAW workers' pay across the board. Let's say $8.40, which is also a 30% cut. $16,800 per worker per 2k-hour year. $756 million for Ford's estimated 45,000 UAW workers together. So, yeah, cutting pay cross the bottom would amount to more savings to Ford than cutting pay at the top.
But, there is something to consider. Ford isn't the only one broke. So are the workers and their families. Remember, we're on the tail end of years of factory layoffs--may of those UAW workers are supporting their spouses, kids, parents, in-laws, etc. And all of these people live in broke communities, so if you go that route instead of taking $6.5 million from wherever Mulally spends his money, you'll be taking $756 million from broke communities all over.
So it's a lot more complex that just what's best for Ford's books.
To Ford's credit, they're one of the better balanced companies out there. Before the economy started crashing there were firms that were staffed with millionaires and billionaires at the top, and phone banks in India at the bottom.
The fact of the matter is that for decades now we've been concentrating wealth in the most stagnant part of the economy--the rich. That money had to come from somewhere, and it came out of the hands of the rest of the economy, which is the part that moves things. The economy isn't stagnant because the billionaires are strapped for cash. The economy is stagnant because the rest of us are strapped for cash.
You can argue endlessly about who deserves what and bla bla bla--none of that crap matters. Numbers matter, and the numbers are with the poor and middle class. One rich guy, no matter what, simply cannot consume as much food as 116 regular people's families and will not employ as many farmers as a result. One rich guy can't raise as many children, build as many houses, pave as many roads, or screw in as many bolts as 116 of the poor and middle class.
One $6.5 million pay cut doesn't amount to squat compared to 45,000 $8.40 pay cuts over 2,000 hours because no matter what one man won't do as much work and make as much of an impact as 45,000 people. One $60 million pay cut still wouldn't hold a candle to it.
Likewise, paying one guy an extra $6.5 million isn't as worthwhile as paying 45,000 people an extra $8.40 per hour, or even just saving 116 jobs.
Ford doesn't build expensive cars just for the rich because that market is too small. They build cheap and medium cars for the rest of us. And the workers don't owe shit to Ford or the execs. If Ford weren't around, cars, buyers, assembly lines, and workers would still exist--they'd all just have different logos.
And the point during all of this restructuring is not to mindlessly cut costs all over the place. That's what the economy has been doing for the last 30+ years and we wound up with all of our factories in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Mexico. The point during all of this is to move the money back into the part of the economy that will make use of it. Otherwise, who will Ford sell cars to?
For those of you terrified of communism, yes, this is wealth redistribution. It gets used because it works when the economy is this far out of balance. Look at the recovery from the great depression--they taxed the hell out of the most wealthy and practically gave money away to the lower and middle class. And you know what the economy did as a result? It grew. We all raised and educated a bunch of kids, built a bunch of industries, invented a bunch of technology, and created a bunch of artwork all at the same time. Among other things, that gave rise to a generation wise enough to deal with civil rights.
One of the worst things to come out of the republican party is the religious belief that only the wealthy drive the economy and all of the rest of us are a bunch of damned parasites. That's bull. The most basic economies function just fine with no wealthy people at all. Hell, many of the small economies don't even use money--they're strictly barter. OTOH, there are no economies anywhere that consist of only wealthy people.
The guy that owns my company didn't create my job--the customers who need their trucks repaired created my job. Rich people didn't create their truck-driving jobs--shippers needing to move goods created their jobs. Rich people didn't create the shippers' jobs--the customers buying all of that crap created the shippers' jobs. Some people simply got rich on the way; good for them, but they're the cart, not the horse.
I don't know of any rich people who can eat 40,000 pounds of onions, but I know of hundreds and even thousands of regular people who go to my local HEB and buy onions each day.
Pay cuts need to start at the top. I'm sure Mr. Mulally will survive just fine on his remaining $15million per year.