DL cries woe is me and takes bonuses..sound anything familiar?

[PITbull]

Pilot union chief blasts Delta bonuses
By RUSSELL GRANTHAM / Cox News Service

ATLANTA -- The national president of the biggest pilot union on Friday blasted companies for awarding executive bonuses and pension protections in a year of losses and worker cutbacks.
Duane Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, called the $42 million perk package given to executives of Delta Air Lines a case in point.
The Atlanta airline has said the moves, disclosed this week in a regulatory filing, are needed to retain talented executives.
In Washington on Friday, Senate Republicans adjusted a new airline aid proposal so that it would cap executive compensation, a leadership aide told Dow Jones News Service.
The $2.8 billion aid package would require airlines to sign a two-year agreement limiting total compensation to 2002 base pay. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading player on the issue, on Thursday called news of CEO bonuses insulting.
Dow Jones reported that the Senate package would extend war-risk insurance through mid-2004; reimburse airlines for strengthened cockpit doors and certain other security costs; and suspend the $2.50 ticket fee levied after Sept. 11.
A separate plan is being considered in the House.
Woerth, the union chief, said news of bonuses couldn't have been more ill-timed.
Thousands of airline workers have lost their jobs or given significant wage, benefit and work-rule concessions since Sept. 11 to help save their companies, Woerth said, noting that the Iraq war has added to the problems.
Therefore, it is disconcerting, if not outrageous, that airline executives are lining their pockets while employees are subsidizing these bonuses and bankruptcy-protected retirement plans.
Delta spokesman John Kennedy did not respond directly but defended the airline's compensation moves.
Delta executives are compensated at about 50 percent of their peer group, he said, while all other employee groups are from 80 to more than 100 percent of their peer groups.
Delta's filing showed that the top five executives got full salaries plus bonuses totaling $4.8 million. Chief Executive Officer Leo Mullin got the biggest bonus, $1.4 million, in addition to his $795,000 salary. Another 55 second-tier executives got six-figure bonuses totaling $12.5 million.
The filing also showed that Delta spent $25.5 million setting up special accounts to protect certain executives' pensions in the event of bankruptcy. That plan called for two more payments this year and next.
Yet just this week, Woerth said, the CEO of Delta told a meeting of economists that Delta must 'continue a program of cost reductions that outsizes any undertaken in its history.' A $42.5 million perk package for top executives hardly qualifies as cost reduction of any sort.
After Delta's filing, Continental and Northwest also disclosed bonuses for top executives, although they were smaller.
Delta management is in preliminary talks with the airline's ALPA unit about contract concessions.
Delta ALPA leaders held a special meeting this week, mainly on unrelated topics.
Spokeswoman Karen Miller said the union plans to move forward on issues we can control, and [the bonus and pension payments] have already occurred.
Also this week, Delta resumed pilot furloughs, citing the impact of the war on travel demand.

 

[PITbull]

It''s not the salary concession. Anyone can take a salary concession as base pay reduction. It''s the damn bonuses that circumvent any pay cuts. And most execs. contracts are worded in rewarding execs for targets met; hasn''t anything to do with company performance, but their job performance in meeting or exceeding certain targets.

 

[PITbull]

Bob,

I disagree. You should not be entitled to a bonus for reaching targets for keeping doors open when 17,000 employees had to be sacrificed as well as a business plan that literally stripped the employees of "livable wage", financial retirement and security, along with lowering protections if sick, injured or disabled, and major increases in medical contributions on a reduced wage. OK. you receive a salary for being employed and doing your job. But, paid a bonus from the sacrifices given from employees, is unethical and immoral, and if a company receives any subsidies or grants from the gov. it should be against the law, until grants are paid back to the taxpayers.

Its like this: If my sitter baby sits for $1 per hour, my lender on my house excuses my payments and reduces my mortagage at high interst rates, because I can't make the income I use to, and my groceries are given to me for free, and utilities are paid by gov. subsidies, then, I can keep my house and the doors stay open for me and my family. Now, I only need to be able to have the ability to threaten these folks in order for my "plan" to succeed.

Do I deserve a bonus for that?

Using U as an example:

RSA will get a return on investment and all shareholders as well for any investment they put in this co. Conversely, the employees, who are also investors, as well as the "front line worker who delivers the product, receive a new contractual wage, that can not pay their living expenses for them or their families, and are forced to look for other forms of employement, or add to their income by working another job, to make up the differnce.

That's the reality using U as an example, from the view of a 22 year employee, not a passenger or Senior Exec. who just entered the property one year ago.

Perks and agreements within the senior ranks are protected because they make the rules. Example: Retirement contract is calculated on earnings that are BEFORE the execs. reduced wage. As if it never happended. And they get to collect, according to their years of service at an accerlerated rate, at normal retirement age, however, with the "change in control" language in their contracts, they get this retirement to commence when that language gets "triggered" Nice... This is in the SEC 10-K filing.

 

[Light Years]

Apparently the same is going on at NWA. Glad to see some publicity about this.

 

[PITbull]

Now that my friend, would have some honor.