Ford: Bonuses for $12.7 billion lost?
Nearly 40,000 Ford workers are losing their jobs. Those who remain will likely be asked to make sacrifices in wages, benefits and job assignments. Ford retirees are picking up part of their medical coverage, and current workers are trading in some future raises to help build up a healthcare fund.
Meanwhile, the company is considering reinstating bonuses for top executives. Some may eclipse their salaries. Ford chief Alan Mulally, for example, can earn more than $3 million in bonuses to top his $2 million base salary.
The bonuses are tied in part to statistical measures of quality and cost.
Faced with a year's losses of $12.7 billion, Ford execs should have an interesting time making their case for a merit-based bonus.
One wonders, on top of accepting perks for what hardly looks like stellar performance, if the top folks might not sleep better at night knowing that a bit of belt tightening could have saved the jobs of a bread-winner or two.
If conscience doesn't come into play, maybe public relations will.
American car companies are learning a bitter lesson in humility and taming of ego. When it comes to production of gas guzzlers or pampering of executives, they should take a lesson from foreign automakers who understood long ago that less in the short run can turn into more in the long run.
posted by Krista Ramsey at 4:41 PM
6 Comments:
at 7:33 PM, January 26, 2007 
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at 8:05 PM, January 26, 2007 
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at 11:29 AM, January 27, 2007 
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at 12:54 PM, January 29, 2007 
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at 11:43 PM, January 31, 2007 
Nathaniel Livingston Jr. said...
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at 3:39 PM, July 03, 2007 
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Post a Comment*in this, the sixth year of bush and the neoclown agenda its hard to believe that you can feign outrage at obscene bonus'es for the most useless people in a corporation.
while it would be gratifying if more than a few ford executives took a lesson from the samuri warrior and committed Seppuku for the error in the ways, it will never happen. instead the citizens of batavia and sharonville will be punished and smited like the citizens of norwood and hamilton were in a previous generation.
bottom line: at least have some class like that guy at chrysler and give up your salary and bonus until the company turns around.
$12.7 billion? What a waste.With that, we could have paid for the occupation of Iraq for a whole month and a half.
But here's a thought. Since the Iraqis are blowing up their cars at a staggering pace, Ford might consider entering that market as a way to reduce their inventory of SUV's. If the bigwigs at Ford adopt this plan, they will be seen as heroes and awarded double bonuses by a grateful board of directors.
It would also make good business sense for Ford to discontinue all U.S. operations and build new plants in Iraq to lower costs and better serve the interests of their shareholders.
Everyone would win except for all those overpaid U.S. production workers, who deserve to lose their jobs, because all they do is produce gas guzzlers and pay taxes.
When a rational and cohesive post is made we will comment. After the first two posts, we are still waiting.
what isn't rational and cohesive about someone pointing out that c level executives and boards of directors are ripping off the middle class of the country? don't you watch lou dobbs?
Interesting.
The City of Cincinnati faces a $13.7 Million budget deficit.
Dozens of city workers are losing their jobs. Those who remain are being asked to make sacrifices in wages and benefits.
Additionally, Department budgets are being slashed. Money going to everything from parks, to recreation centers, to swimming pools is being cut. And the city says it is so strapped for cash it has to cut back on the amount of money it gives to support programs that help the poor.
Meanwhile, back in December, Councilmembers, including those who pretend to be fiscally conservative like Leslie Ghiz and Chris Bortz, took taxpayers' money and gave their employees hefty bonuses. Ghiz and Bortz both gave their aides $5,000 bonuses. (One member of Bortz's staff rakes in over $74,000 a year! Not bad.)
This is fair? Well paid staffers get bonuses while everyone else, in the name of shared sacrifice, gets cuts!
For some reason, Cincinnati Enquirer writers -- both in the newsroom and at the editorial board -- have yet to write a single word about this situation. One wonders why? Is it because some of the Councilmembers passing out bonuses were endorsed by the paper and are favored by the publisher? Is this a situation where the paper has decided to remain silent in hopes that this issue will magically go away?
One also wonders how Krista Ramsey can so clearly articulate the wrongfulness at Ford, yet keep mum on the wrongfulness going on right under her nose at City Hall.
I am a Ford Salary Retiree. I am talking to all the retirees that I can here in Florida to STOP buying Ford Products. Ford has Screwed us retirees so bad that this is our only way to send a message. They have ut our health care to USELESS INSURANCE and now when you turn 65 they are going to cut it off. This is a total bunch of BS by the company.
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