NWA execs want $20 million for themselves

[405]

Butters, you have a link for that article?

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

They can have their bonuses when they get us out of bankruptcy successfully.

If their are furloughs and concessions going on, not a single person should get a bonus. I dont see a bonus for any of the flight or mx personnel.

 

[Butters]

The original article can be found here.


NWA officials seek to keep bonuses in bankruptcy filing







Northwest Airlines is asking the bankruptcy court to approve millions of dollars in bonuses to a handful of executives.

This request comes as the airline is laying off workers and asking the rest for deep pay cuts.

"It's ridiculous," says Peter Fiske, an executive board member at large with the Professional Flight Attendants Union.

The airline wants executives to be allowed to retain their incentive plans, which are worth $20 million.

According to papers filed in bankruptcy court, Northwest says continuation of the incentive plans is "critical to Northwest's ability to remain a competitive employer and to avoid a potential loss of employees."

"It's absolutely absurd," Fiske said.

His union is supposed to re-enter contract talks next week with Northwest, and the airline is asking flight attendants for an additional $195 million in concessions.

A Northwest spokesman said the executive incentives are "previously existing obligations" that managers have come to expect, and taking them away means some managers might quit their jobs.

The spokesman, Kurt Ebenhoch, also says that salaried employees and managers took pay cuts before anyone else at the airline.

In December 2004, he said those cuts were worth $35 million. For the top five executives, that amounted to a 20 percent pay cut, Ebenhoch said.

He also said executive pensions were converted to 401(K)'s.

But on the picket lines, where union mechanics have been walking for a month, they said it adds insult to injury to know executives want to keep those $20 million incentives.

"Nothing surprises me anymore," said Kelly O'Brien, a striking AMFA mechanic. "They keep adding to their pockets and taking away from everybody else's, and I guess nobody seems to care but us.

As for the flight attendants, Peter Fiske says the airline is asking for $195 million in concessions - in addition to 1,400 layoffs that were announced last week.

He says he'll be negotiating with part of the same management team that's responsible for driving the airline into Chapter 11.

"It was not the employees that forced this airline to file bankruptcy," he said. "It was the management. The employees have never been the problem."

Northwest has said it wants to reduce its labor costs by $1.4 billion.

Monday, the airline said, once Northwest has reached agreements with its other unions, management and pilots will take another wage cut to contribute to that $1.4 billion goal.

By Scott Goldberg, KARE 11 News

(Copyright 2005 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

They can have their bonuses when they get us out of bankruptcy successfully.

If their are furloughs and concessions going on, not a single person should get a bonus. I dont see a bonus for any of the flight or mx personnel.

You aren't even in the same universe to have any real say in this....

Control what you can....

 

[Dodge]

If these bonuses are "previously exsisting obligations", then so are all the labor contracts. NO CONCESSIONS!!!!

 

[the_dimwit]

Up until earlier this year, I worked for MCI (UUNET when I started, then Worldcom, then MCI/Worldcom...). I was at the company all through bankruptcy. Retention bonuses were given to quite a few "executives" with the explanation being along the same lines as Northwest's.

It was complete BS.

Meanwhile, the folks on the front lines were getting pink slips (I made it through 11 rounds of layoffs) and management got paid. Now that the company is being bought by Verizon, a few executives are getting ready to make a lot of money--and additional layoffs will follow for the people at the bottom.

That's the way it works in the corporate world. Those at the top stay on top, and those at the bottom get the leftovers (if anything at all).

Sad but true...

Don

 

[RampTower]

Once again, NWA management's true colors show again without mercy. NWA history has shown only their management is worthy of "retaining" by giving bonuses and raises. Every other employee group is expendible and replaceable, i.e. NWA mechanics on the picketline. Your 20+ years of proven safety and reliability is not worthy of any incentive and since you are breaking 6 figures, we must replace you! This has been the NWA mgt. way since it's inception. Read Flying the Line Vol. I, Northwest Airways in the late 1920s. Brutal, just brutal union busting.

Basically, NWA mgt. is getting away with everything short of murder in the public's eye and no one is stopping them. It's truly amazing that they have the balls to even ask for 20 million- but hey, if I skipped ethics and morals classes at business school, flushed my conscious, and had a small johnson, I'd probably be the same way.

 

[captpetefam]

New Old Idea

I say we petition the BK Judge to implement the Lee Iokoka method: Each person in MGMT gets paid $1.00 per year until the company is turned around. They drove us in... they drive us out.

CP

 

[sf3boy]

The problem is: The public just doesn't care. ALPA has tried to educate the realities to the masses but nobody is listening. The ONLY thing that pax do care about is low priced tickets. So what if the two in the front make less than a teller at the bank......if they want to make more, go be a teller.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

The problem is: The public just doesn't care. ALPA has tried to educate the realities to the masses but nobody is listening. The ONLY thing that pax do care about is low priced tickets. So what if the two in the front make less than a teller at the bank......if they want to make more, go be a teller.

Yup, ALPA has determined that the millions it takes to educate the public is quickly lost...

Which is one reason why the UAL pilots in the Summer of Love stranded so many passengers. The pax would cry.... I'll never fly UAL again! Only to see them next month take advantage of a UAL Super Saver fare....

The real problem is the ALPA pilots don't know how to care. The last thing they know anything about is how a union works and how to make it work for them. Well, the FedEx pilots are learning....

 

[goaliemn]

Just FYI, the $20Mil is for retention of salaried employees.. not just the higher ups. Most companies in bankruptcy usually offer some retention to some of their required personnel to keep them from bailing.

$20mil for probably 8-10K employees isn't that much

 

[Butters]

Just FYI, the $20Mil is for retention of salaried employees.. not just the higher ups. Most companies in bankruptcy usually offer some retention to some of their required personnel to keep them from bailing.

$20mil for probably 8-10K employees isn't that much

Read the article again, chief.

"Northwest Airlines is asking the bankruptcy court to approve millions of dollars in bonuses to a handful of executives. The airline wants executives to be allowed to retain their incentive plans, which are worth $20 million."

Pretty hard to justify an "incentive plan" (read: bonus) just because it was promised in an earlier contract. Doesn't stop them from breaking everyone else's contracts. That is the problem with upper management. They think they are more important than the masses.

But I guess someone needs to be around to furlough everyone else.