And how does the CEO salary hurt the standard employee? Most of the S&P 500 companies employ around 100k of people. dividing $20M salary equally between them would give each of them $16.6 per month.
You are correct. It doesn't. The entire CEO pay controversy is a wedge issue. The only people who should be complaining about CEO pay are shareholders.
(Many do in fact. Carl Icahn for instance.)