Congress took a step towards cracking down on corporate and big bank CEO pay today, as the House passed the Corporate and Financial Institution Compensation Fairness Act of 2009 by a 237-to-185 vote. Today's vote to restrict risky compensation and bonuses would apply to any company with more than $1 billion in assets. It follows mind-boggling report on Thursday that nine of the country's biggest banks--all receiving billions of dollars in bailout funds--had 'awarded' roughly 4,800 million-dollar-plus bonuses.

Today, the average CEO today makes in one day what the average worker is paid in one year. Employment compensation for workers in this country has grown over the past 12 months by the lowest amount on record--a stark reality that stands in direct contrast to the skyrocketing CEO pay and bonuses that have not slowed since our economic crisis hit. Here's a visual to help illustrate our point:

The Penthouse View vs. The Main Street Reality

Bonuses at big banks have even outpaced earnings. CBS News reports that while Goldman Sachs earned $2.3 billion last year and received $10 billion in TARP funds they paid out $4.8 billion in bonuses--more than double their income. "America is not living up to its promise when one of the architects of the economic crisis gets paid billions in bonuses for his failures while his employees take home wages barely above the poverty level," said SEIU President Andy Stern.

The House passage of the bill is an important step to correct the enormous disparity between those at the top and regular working Americans, but much more needs to be done to help Main Street recover. SEIU is calling on lawmakers to pass the Employee Free Choice Act as an essential way to rein in reckless CEOs and corporate greed and speed up economic recovery.

It appears that big bonuses are back on Wall Street....er rather, maybe they never really left.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US... Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available." Let me repeat that -- more than one-third of all pay in the U.S.

Adding to the slew of evidence that big banks are already returning to their old (economy-crushing) ways, the Washington Post reports that the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion in 2009 for bonuses and other compensation--up $14 billion from last year alone. These six banks -- Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley -- are all TARP recipients, and we're not talking chump change here either.

So today, we thought we'd highlight one particularly egregious example of "old habits dying hard." And that's putting it lightly.

To date, Citigroup has received $45 billion dollars in bailout money. Curious as to what this deeply-wounded bank has been doing recently to get back on their feet and pay American taxpayers back? Raising interest rates on as many as 15 million credit card holders, organizing a call to "build opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act" and and doling out million-dollar bonuses to their "star" company bigwigs, of course! Because who deserves an $100 million bonus more than a big deal energy trader who works for a bank that's 33 percent owned by the government? (As Citi helpfully points out, giving company higher-ups compensation bonuses they can't really afford is how they retain talent and turn such monumental profits. Oh wait....)

"As millions of families struggle just to hang onto their homes and get through the next month's bills, the architects of the economic crisis are using our tax dollar bailouts on the kind of bonus money that finances glitzy Upper East Side Penthouses and glamorous Riviera getaways," said SEIU president Andy Stern. Rather than focusing on paying back the billions they borrowed, financial institutions like Citigroup continue to hold onto the failed policies of the past that enrich the very few at top while indebting the rest of America.

The White House's executive pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, who's charged with reining in what the administration sees as extravagantly oversized bonuses, will most likely vet whether or not Citigroup's energy trader Andrew Hall--who owns a 1,000-year-old castle and extensive modern art collection rumored to be valued at around $60 million--gets his $100 million bonus. Which begs the question: Are wealthy Americans truly turning back to pre-crisis habits, even as most of the country remains in deep economic stress?

Watch MSNBC's take on the situation:

Bailout architects have stuck to their story that the government will probably to get most of the bailout money back. But since the bailouts began almost a year ago, Wall Street's refusal to scale back dangerous pay habits like these make it seem probably that the federal government--and taxpayers--can say "sayonara" to some of their money.

Now more than ever, we need the Employee Free Choice Act to level the playing field against this kind of excessive corporate greed.

We just sent out this email about the outrageous editorial the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published this week. Read the email and then use the tool to write a letter to the editor--we must take a stand for workers in Arkansas.

Shouldn't we ask whether it's morally defensible for a top executive to accept tens of millions in pay while he is destroying the lives of his workers?

As janitors and community supporters continue their hunger strike outside of Cisco Systems corporate headquarters in San Jose, Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy has written a thought-provoking column about the corporate strategy of treating layoffs as 'par-for-the-course' events that are the cost of doing business in this downtrodden economy.

Cassidy points to the disparity between the blasé attitude the tone of conversations surrounding layoffs have taken on and the real-life devastation that large-scale layoffs cause for people, families, and communities. (One example of this 'detached' attitude that springs to mind is Bank of America ex-chairman Ken Lewis, whose response when asked about the job cuts BofA delivered to nearly 35,000 of its employees in April showed little care for his employees.)

"I understand that at times, in the interest of survival or reinvention, companies must pare down or realign their work forces. I know that this is one of the worst economies since the Great Depression...

But that doesn't mean we can ignore the way massive job losses, including from profitable companies with extravagantly paid executives, are choking the life out of our economy and our communities. People who don't work don't buy things or keep current on their mortgages. Stores close. Homes go vacant. Neighborhoods and commercial districts shrivel up.

Cassidy also rightly points to the hypocrisy of corporate executives such as Cisco's multimillionaire CEO John Chambers, who appears to be one of many high-powered executives not reported to have considered making cuts to their high-dollar salaries and compensation packages a regular business practice in lean times.

The important principle these fasting janitors are sacrificing so much to make: a company that has $34 billion in cash assets and paid its CEO $18.8 million last year shouldn't just stand by while $12-an-hour workers are let go by the contractor Cisco hired to work on its campus. The question "what choice did we have?" from a chief executive in the face of shattering company layoffs shouldn't be rhetorical, says Cassidy. This question, he says, "should be put to business leaders by the press and politicians. We should all be talking about it. Isn't there another way?"

Justice for Cisco Janitors has estimated that it would cost just a month and half of Cisco CEO Chambers' salary, or a little more than $1 million, to bring back all of the 70+ laid-off janitors of SEIU Local 1877 to work for the rest of this year. Please stand with these janitors--who are currently in Day 6 of their hunger strike--as they demand justice for the janitors at Cisco Systems and stand up to all the corporations who are deaf to the kitchen-table concerns of middle class Americans.

Click here to send a letter to Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers or visit http://seiuaction.org/campaign/justiceatcisco