Jobs and Tony Hayward

Dr. Errington Thompson

There is a huge brouhaha over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum, has been under the microscope ever since this crisis started. When you are the CEO of a major corporation, you should be no stranger to scrutiny. As a CEO, you know that competitors, stockholders, reporters and other executives in your company are questioning your every move. For some unexpected reason, though, Tony Hayward lost it last weekend when he said, “I’m sorry. We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I’d like my life back!”

Now, don’t rush to judgment. Think about that for just a second. The CEO of British Petroleum, who makes roughly $4.5 million a year, would like his life back. A life working 30–40 hours per week. A life with weekends off. Let that phrase roll around in your cranium for just a second…

Now contrast Tony Hayward’s foolish comment with the new job numbers
released for May. The economy gained 431,000 jobs, which is the biggest
single one-month gain in many years. Unfortunately, 411,000 of those
jobs were government jobs. The private sector was responsible for only
20,000 new jobs. These numbers are extremely disappointing. I was hoping
for the private sector to gain somewhere around 250,000 jobs,
especially because we are entering the summer months, in which jobs are
typically more plentiful.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has dropped to 9.7 percent, down from
9.9 percent. But the unemployment rate for blacks is 15.5 percent and
for Hispanics 12.4 percent; for men it’s 10.5 percent versus 8.8 percent
for women. This recovery seems to be grinding to a halt before it
really gets started.

Americans are working harder than ever. Our productivity has been rising
for the last decade. We are giving employers more output in spite of
the fact that we are not getting paid any more per hour. Many of us are
now working seven days a week. We have two jobs—but we’re still having
trouble making ends meet. Yet here we have the CEO of a major
corporation whining about being in the spotlight and having to perform
under this pressure!

I’m sorry, but I have no sympathy for Tony Hayward, or any other CEO of a
major corporation. They have decided to run their companies under the
mantra, Profits above all else!

We’ve learned that as BP pushed to get this well completed so that the
platform could move on to another drilling project, normal procedure was
ignored. Problems that came up were bypassed instead of solved. The
result is a major economic and environmental disaster. When asked who is
going to pay for this catastrophe, President Obama has answered
unequivocally that the responsibility will fall to British Petroleum.
Although I believe that the president is sincere, it is the people of
the Gulf Coast who will truly pay. It will take years to clean up the
Gulf Coast. I’m not talking about just removing the oil; I’m talking
about tourism, which includes gambling casinos, beaches, and sport
fishing, and I’m talking about commercial fisherman who won’t be able to
harvest fish, shrimp, and other delicacies from the Gulf for several—or
many—years to come.

Tony Hayward did apologize for his insensitive and thoughtless comment.
His apology is not the point. Instead, the question should be: When are
we, we average Americans, going to get a break? All we want is to earn a
living wage at a decent job. In other words: We want our lives back.
Why is that so hard?