UPDATE 2-Democrat Edwards attacks high CEO pay, big oil profits

(Recasts, adds Edwards comments on oil prices)

By Bill Rigby

NEW YORK, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender John Edwards on Wednesday mounted an attack on excessive executive pay and soaring oil company profits, promising a series of moves that he said would "restore balance between America's corporations and America's working families."

In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, the former Democratic senator from North Carolina said that if elected president he would cap untaxed chief executive pay, require companies to enroll employees in retirement plans and force firms to honor pension promises to workers, even in bankruptcy.

On the campaign trail in Burlington, Iowa, he tore into corporations profiting as crude oil hit a record above $100 a barrel, spicing up his message that corporate greed is crippling the U.S. middle class.

The opinion piece and oil rhetoric mark the most vehement challenge against corporations so far from Edwards, a former plaintiff's lawyer who specialized in suing U.S. companies.

Edwards is currently running third in Iowa's Democrat presidential nominating contest, according to the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll. The Iowa caucuses will be held on Thursday night.

"The problem is that the successes of our economy are no longer shared," wrote Edwards in the Journal opinion piece. "Forty percent of all economic growth over the past 20 years has gone to the top 1 percent of American families."

Chief executives now earn 400 times the average salary, according to Edwards, while the share of corporate profits going to CEO pay has doubled since the 1990s and the real value of the minimum wage has fallen.