Nuns Rap Goldman Sachs Fatcats for Pay

Lloyd Blankfein’s salary nearly doubled in 2010 to a total of around $19 million—and the Catholic church isn’t happy about it. Four orders of nuns that invest with Goldman Sachs have all signed on to a proposal demanding the bank review its compensation policy, the Guardian reports. The nuns are pushing the board to review and report on whether compensation is “excessive,” and on how it relates to “sizable layoffs and the level of pay of our lowest paid workers.”

Goldman says it’ll fight the proposal, saying shareholders already have access to plenty of data on the company’s compensation practices. “Our board believes that the preparation of the requested report would be a distraction,” it says. Goldman paid out $69.5 million to its top five executives last year, including Blankfein’s aforementioned $19 million payday. Goldman's shareprice was relatively flat on the year, Bloomberg notes, but pay shot up because executives resumed paying themselves cash bonuses, after a two-year hiatus. Click for more on Goldman bonuses. (More Goldman Sachs stories.)