Overpaid CEOs: What they really earn

Here is a transcript from A Current Affair, where AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten was interviewed about out-of-control CEO wages

Overpaid organisers -- it's one way of looking at CEOs of the nation's top 50 companies. Some of them take home in a week what the rest of us earn in a year, and the top 10 earn a whole lot more.

Rupert Murdoch tops the list at over $23.5m.

Macquarie banker Allan Moss pockets a handsome $18.5m a year.

Leighton's boss Wal King gets over $12.5m.

Roger Corbett, who heads Woolworths, does a fine job, but is it worth $8.5m?

The average CEO in this country now earns $3.4m a year. That's about $13,000 each working day. It's $1300 in a lunch break, and $65 for a quick toilet break.

Australian Worker's Union secretary Bill Shorten is fuming about the figures.

"People are simply not worth $15 million, $18 million a year. There is no business case for it.

I'll tell you what, if someone wants to advertise a job for $2 million a year and not $3 million a year, they will still get as many capable takers," he says.

Tony Mercaldi is a CEO who runs his own customs business. He reckons he works as hard as those other bosses but his pay packet is vastly different.

"Here, for example, we're open six days a week and the top wage is $50k," he says.

Finance journalist Trevor Sykes points out that it's a healthy economy and not so much savvy business skills that has boosted the salaries of bosses.

"About five years ago the chief executives of the top four banks were earning roughly about $2 million a year. Nowadays it's more than double that and at Westpac it's a matter of over $7 million," he says.

"Now, all the banks have performed well in that time but in this buoyant market they should perform well ... let's see when a rough market comes along. I bet none of them take a pay cut.

"Shareholders have no power at the moment. All they can do is make a vote against the remuneration report at the annual meeting but that has no force -- it's merely indicative. It doesn't stop them being paid."