TJX CEO earns 1,500 times more than median employee

TJX owns TJ Maxx, with locations like this in Worcester's Greendale Mall.

Photo | File photo TJX CEO Ernie Herrman

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By Zachary Comeau

Three Central Massachusetts companies have reported CEO pay at least 100 times that of respective companies’ median employees.

TJX Cos. and its CEO Ernie Herrman top the list, with Herrman’s nearly $16.9 million in total compensation in 2017 coming in about 1,500 times higher than a median employee of the Framingham-based retail parent company.

The disclosures a new rule enacted on publicly traded companies this year, part of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations passed in 2010.

According to TJX’s filing, the median employee for the purposes of the disclosure was a part-time hourly retail store associate. Herrman topped the list of Central Massachusetts highest paid CEOs.

Michael Mahoney, CEO of Marlborough medical device maker Boston Scientific, came after, with his $13 million in 2017 compensation coming it 205 times higher than the median employee’s pay of $63,696.

Christopher O’Connell, president and CEO of Milford lab equipment manufacturer Waters Corp., made $7.6 million in 2017 – 100 times higher than the company’s median employee’s pay of $75,696.

Waters excluded 291 non-U.S. employees but included 3,700 others abroad to calculate median worker pay.

Most median employees in companies researched by the WBJ made above the state’s $62,000 average reported in May 2017 by the U.S. Department of Labor, including the median worker at Framingham energy efficiency firm Ameresco, who made more than $100,000 in 2017.

Ameresco President and CEO George Sakellaris made $950,000, creating a ratio of 9.5-to-1.

On the lower end, however, Oxford-based photonic laser manufacturer IPG Photonics reported a median pay of $32,676, nearly half of the state’s average salary. IPG reported Chairman and CEO Valentin Gaspontsev’s 2017 pay to be $2.3 million.