Nortel execs have apparently taken leave of their senses altogether. The company is completely in the crapper and the hangman is waiting on the scaffold for the company. The execs have seen fit to dole out $45 million in bonus cheques? I’m really not sure I can wrap my head around this one.
From the Toronto Star:
A Canadian court has allowed eight senior executives at Nortel Networks Corp to share in the bonuses the telecom equipment maker plans to pay out even as it fights for survival in bankruptcy protection.
Nortel already had court approval to pay out a total of $45 million in bonuses for close to 1,000 executive and nonexecutive employees.
Friday’s ruling by the Ontario Superior Court makes the eight senior executives, who do not include Chief Executive Mike Zafirovski, eligible to receive a share of this money, company spokesman Mohammed Nakhooda said.
Maybe I’m a touch out of it but, where is the logic here? The “retain talent” spin is obviously not worth the cash when you consider the bang up job that they’ve been doing. And to make matters even worse (or to finance the institutional theft) they recently cut 3,200 employees with no severance. I usually avoid profanity but, this is just fucked.
Abandon ship! Take all the fine china and silver with you, every man for himself!
@JibbaJabber HA! Seriously though. While the money is a mere pittance in the grand scheme of things, it is a case of piss poor timing from an optics perspective.
Basic math puts that at $45000 in bonus per employee on average. Let suppose the average salary of these 1000 employees is $100 000/year, more basic math translates to a 45% bonus. This isn’t optically suspicious, this is dishonorable in every sense.
There are so many reasons this is unconscionable one being that Nortel has fed their pension fund to the fire, and unlike the current employees, most pensioners are unable to work again to make up the loss.