Hunnell was among the lucky.

A study by HR consultancy Hewitt Associates of more than 300 organizations found that two-thirds of companies said they would not award holiday bonuses this year. More than half had never offered a holiday bonus, while 14 percent had discontinued their programs. Of those that canceled, nearly two-thirds did so in the past six years.

Contrast the empty envelope of most U.S. workers to the platinum-lined pay packets of Goldman Sachs employees, who will receive an average of $542,000 per employee this year, with $5 million or more for a handful of star traders and top bankers. In 2005, the average worker in the United States made a grand total of $41,861.

In fact, securities-industry employees in New York City are slated to receive $23.9 billion in bonuses this year, surpassing last year’s record by 17 percent, according to a forecast by New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

Wall Street bonuses will average $137,580 this year, nearly 2½ times the average annual salary for the city’s nonfinancial jobs, according to a report from Hevesi’s office. The payments will generate about $1.6 billion in tax revenue for New York state and $500 million for New York City, Hevesi said today.

This level of private excess is “indefensible,” says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. In a letter today to Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.Y) and Jim McCrery (R-La.), Sweeney says the situation cries out for a more progressive tax policy that “puts our country’s urgent needs ahead of a few individual’s desire to spend more on a bottle of champagne than a minimum wage worker will make in an entire year.”

Middle class and lower-income American families face continued wage stagnation and spiraling health care costs. Between 2000 and 2004, real median family income fell 3 percent, or about $1,600 in 2004 dollars. We urge you in your leadership capacity in the new Congress to take a fresh look at closing executive pay loopholes that skirt congressionally mandated limits.

We must address the fundamental unfairness of a system that allows Wall Street investment bankers to buy $15,000 champagne bottles while our troops die for lack of body armor and hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans in New Orleans remain refugees in their own country.

See Sweeney’s letter to the senators here and to the House members here.

In the Hewitt survey, companies said the main reasons for scrapping a bonus program include cost (61 percent), employees did not value it (35 percent)—these likely are the employees who got $10 turkey certificates—entitlement issues (33 percent) and the development of pay-for-performance programs (21 percent).

Among 1,500 small businesses, 39 percent plan to give employees holiday bonuses this year, according to Constant Contact, an e-mail marketing service for small businesses, up 2 percent from last year.

Bonuses, of course, are just the foam in champagne glass.

In 2005, the average CEO in the United States earned 262 times the pay of the average worker, the second-highest level of this ratio in the 40 years for which there are data. In 2005, a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than an average worker earned in 52 weeks.

Cheers.

Happy Holidays to All Union Workers.