Stellantis: CEO Tavares will earn as 1200 average italian workers, or as 518 of his employees

On Tuesday, April 16, Stellantis shareholders approved Carlos Tavares’ enormous compensation package, which totals 36.5 million euros, despite the strong opposition it has received from a large number of shareholders. The French magazine “Marianne” calculated that the boss’s raise is actually disproportionate to what the employees have received in recent years. Tavares is a classic example of a modern manager who is getting richer while the employees are employed.

Stellantis shareholders said “yes.” At their Annual General Meeting on Tuesday, April 16, they approved a very substantial pay increase for Carlos Tavares, the CEO of the automaker that includes Peugeot and Citroën. In any case, their opinion was only advisory. For the year 2023, the head of Stellantis could then earn as much as 36.5 million euros, according to the company’s annual financial report. That is the equivalent of 878 years of average salary in France and 1200 years in Italy. Is it really worth 870 French employees and 1200 Italian ones? As far as workers are concerned, they now count for nothing in Stellantis.

As has been the case for several years now, the size of this salary has been the subject of fierce criticism, particularly from the unions. Two years ago, Emmanuel Macron himself expressed his dismay, describing Carlos Tavares’ “astronomical” remuneration as “shocking and excessive.” It should be remembered that if the President of the Republic is justified in interfering, it is because the French state is a shareholder in Stellantis through Bpifrance. Yet this time he didn’t say anything, a sign that, in the end, he too is fine with the manager earning this absurd amount of money.

The head of the automotive giant defends himself by pointing out that his pay is determined primarily on the basis of the company’s financial results. These results are indeed excellent. Last year, the company posted a record profit of 18.6 billion euros, but do they depend only on him? Do all other employees count for nothing? And were they made on the basis of long-term decisions or just to maximize current profit?

Everyone will have their own opinion. But to shed light on the question, Marianne analyzed the company’s published financial documents (available here and here). And we noticed that Carlos Tavares’ pay increase was disproportionate to that of the employees.

To make our calculation, we started in 2015, the first full year the Portuguese boss was at the helm of PSA (Citroën and Peugeot). We compared the increase in his salary with the increase in personnel costs per employee, taking inflation into account.

The results are very clear. Carlos Tavares’ pay increased eleven times faster than that of employees. While per capita personnel costs, adjusted for inflation, increased by an average of 2 percent per year, the Stellantis chief’s pay increased by 23 percent each year.

The automotive giant’s profits are thus poorly distributed. And the company is struggling to justify itself. To try to get out of it, the group believes that its chief’s pay should be compared with that of multinationals such as Boeing in the United States (Dave Calhoun, 31 million euros for 2023).

But this seems like a bad idea. While their salaries are comparable on paper (within 5.5 million euros), Boeing seems to be a less unequal company. The ratio of the average pay of Boeing employees to that of their boss is 154, according to the American Federation of Labor website. This is already a colossal figure. But Carlos Tavares is off the scale, earning 518 times more than the average employee, according to his company’s financial report.