Should Jewish Execs Share Their Employees' Pain?

There's no denying that the economic downturn has affected Jewish organizations and that, when forced to examine their bottom line, many of them have determined that layoffs are an unavoidable part of the financial solution. In a recent survey, The Forward examined how many Jewish executives are sharing their employees' pain by taking pay cuts of their own.

The results were interesting, to say the least. Of the 21 organizations surveyed only nine executives revealed that their salaries had been reduced and only seven were willing to reveal how much. Another 10 had not taken pay cuts, while three did not reply. The Forward provided an online summary of the survey in PDF format, which can be viewed here. (It should be noted that JTS chancellor Arnie Eisen has since revealed that he will be taking a 10% pay cut effective July 1st, 2009. This decision was announced to the JTS community on June 15th and is not reflected in The Forward's summary.)

Reading through the article, there appear to be two philosophical responses to the question of whether executives should reduce their salaries. On the one hand, those who did take pay cuts felt doing so was an important aspect of leadership, allowing them to share some of the pain endured by employees who have either been laid off, had their salaries frozen or are working for reduced pay. On the other hand, some executives maintained that non-profits must weigh the "urge to cut salaries for the sake of appearances against the need to pay enough to retain top-flight employees." In other words, talent is expensive and as UJA-Federation of New York board chair Jerry Levin pointed out, senior executives “are working harder than ever, due to reduction in force. It would not be appropriate for them to have any sort of salary reduction."

Rather than pay cuts, some executive salaries have been frozen. Other executives have made financial contributions to their organizations' fundraising efforts. Donations like these enabled the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty to re-hire 10 of the employees it had previously been forced to lay off.

You can learn more about this survey on The Forward's website, but in the meantime I'd love to hear your thoughts: Do you think Jewish executives' salaries should be reduced? Does a reduced salary equal shared pain?