According to the Wall Street Journal, Borders Group is trying to get bankruptcy court approval to hand out “$8.3 million in executive bonuses, including nearly $1.7 million to President Mike Edwards.”
Apparently, if you drive a multinational corporation into the ground, you get a bonus, which Princeton WordNet defines in this context as “an additional payment (or other remuneration) to employees as a means of increasing output.” Borders is frantically trying to explain why they’re doing this while laying off employees around the country:
“The idea of retention bonuses are killing me, but you’d have to pay a king’s ransom for the next group,” said the executive. “It irks me because it’s money that won’t go to paying creditors.”
He added, “I want to see Borders come out of this. If they don’t have these guys, I don’t see a chance.”
I guess as long as someone gets paid, it’s a happy ending.
These are in essence golden parachutes, a way to ensure that the top brass get off the sinking ship in time with millions in their pockets. The ship is going down regardless; better to at least get a million bucks beforehand. Screw the little people who do the work, or hold the debt.
The debt holders should just tell the executives they’re breaking the contracts and won’t pay them anything.
“But they can’t do that!” the republicans will cry, “They can’t just break contracts!”
*Republicans then turn around and break public union contracts*
If the business can’t get along without paying executives more than they’re worth; perhaps that business should not exist. The employees are screwed if Borders closes now, or screwed when it closes a year from now because it’s managed by the same incompetent people.
If you’re going to piss away $8.3M on a bunch of paunchy fratboys, at least drop a dime on a P.R. person to help you avoid giving the impression that you don’t think $8.3M is a king’s ransom all by itself.
I’m a VP for a local, community bank and if I don’t meet my Loan / Deposit / Service goals I certainly don’t get a bonus – I get shit-canned.
Where can we all get a job like these Execs?
Gotta love the circular logic in play here: The company is going to go bankrupt without these execs, but paying them will bankrupt the company!
Excellent bolding, Paul.
See, executive compensation is decided by friends of the CEO. In a good year, they give you giant bonuses.
And in a bad year they give you giant bonuses and pretend there was a reason for it.
Can you say “taken to the cleaners”?
The dogmatic response to bad times in American corporate culture is to hand shitloads of money to executives. Somehow Wall Street has managed to inculcate the culture with the absurd notion that executive performance is a) capable of saving a company which is in all ways bound for failure, and b) directly tied to executive pay. It’s great if you’re a corporate exec, maddening and farcical otherwise.
I really don’t understand the supposed contractual obligations here. I work for a multinational corporation and, I’m guaranteed a modest bonus, but that’s contingent on the company doing at least well enough not to go bankrupt. If my employer were in dire financial straits, I would get nothing, as per MY contract. Why do these executive fucks get special treatment?
What a joke. Does anyone believe that they couldn’t get a whole new management team of top-notch, younger, hunger people to turn this thing around. Hell, you could get them to work for shares in the company. Go take an intro course in entrepreneurship you dipshits and save your millions.
hungry obviously. it’s snack time here, sorry.
“I guess as long as someone gets paid, it’s a happy ending.”
Didn’t those massage parlors get shut down?
Interesting who the quote is coming from: “One veteran publishing executive whose company is an unsecured Borders creditor on Friday expressed frustration with the proposed bonuses but said that he felt the alternative would be even more expensive.”
So how do secured Borders creditor feel?
Quote fail.
The quote attributed to Borders is actually from one of their unsecured creditors:
@15
Again the myth of the indispensable guys who steered the thing into the toilet. Seriously? It’s a book store. Get someone else.
The top execs support each other — and no one else.
At the last company my brother worked, the President dumped 32 longterm company employees in order to justify the inflated salary of yet another worthless Vice President.
And that was after staffing had been cut and recut over the years. My brother started with a staff of six, which had been whittled down to him and his longterm assistant and a part-time temp.
Who’d had all of the work of his staff dumped on top of their own work, of course.
When the company wanted to fire my brother’s colleague of ten years and replace her with a temp, he’d had it and told them if she went, so did he.
Eventually, they fired him, and replaced him with his assistant (lower salary) and dumped all his work on employees already on staff — but he was thrilled to go.
It’s an top executive protection racket: they get all the bucks from cuts and bankruptcies and anyone actually working for a living on staff gets screwed and dumped on — wonder where the middle class salaries are going? They’re going into the pockets of the greedy top corporate, and the workload is being dumped onto the poorly paid new employees.
As a former Borders employee, I think I might send in a resume and offer to be CEO for 1/10th of what they’re paying the idiots who ruined this company. I think this is win-win for them. I can’t mess it up WORSE than the last 4 or 5 CEO’s and even if I’m just as bad, at least I’ll be cheaper. As for me, it might suck going back to Borders and being a CEO but at least I’d have health insurance this time around.
So Borders refuses to pay nonprofits for event tickets sold at their store ( http://m.bozemandailychronicle.com/mobil… ), but can find $8.3 million for the executive team who came up with the idea of aggressively promoting $20 membership cards during the holidays (valid in store only), then shuttering 230 stores…so far. The only talent these hacks seem to posses is feathering their own nest while shitting on the rest of us.