When Nucor had a highly profitable year, everyone in the company would have a very profitable year. Nucor workers became so well paid that one woman told her husband, “If you get fired from Nucor, I’ll divorce you.”56 But when Nucor faced difficult times, everyone from top to bottom suffered. But people at the top suffered more. In the 1982 recession, for example, worker pay went down 25 percent, officer pay went down 60 percent, and the CEO’s pay went down 75 percent.
