Monday, February 09, 2009
I couldn't make this $#!% up if I tried...
Interesting little story circulating the Spirit grapevine today. It seems that there was a short blurb buried way down at the bottom of a business column in Sunday's Seattle Times, discussing Spirit Executives' upcoming "EIP" performance bonus.
Spirit disclosed this week that its board adjusted the annual incentive awards for management and some other employees "to mitigate the impact" [of the Boeing strike]. Each got 62 percent more than the company's short-term incentive plan dictated based on Spirit's actual results. President and CEO Jeffrey Turner, for instance, reaped a $853,416 bonus instead of $526,800.... 10,000-plus union workers are under contracts with a separate profit-sharing formula "that did not trigger a payout for 2008," says a Spirit spokesman.
Now, I may be the only person who wasn't surprised that Spirit Execs would give themselves somekinda bonus after, literally, stealing Christmas from many Spirit employee families. (Those young, new-hire families, who haven't been around as long as I have, couldn't possibly have the vacation balance nor savings account balance to weather three to four months of 60% paychecks we had, without serious impact to their budgets, and those months of short workweeks at the end of the year had to take just about everything they had.)
But even cynical ol' me was absolutely shocked into dumbfounded, mouth-dropping silence that the wages we gave up weren't enough for our Execs and they had to doctor the books to take even more of what little profit our company made last year, while denying the vast majority of the workforce, who made the significant sacrifice to keep us afloat, any share whatsoever.
Of course, I may be mistaken and it could be that, while they were increasing their share, our Execs argued to the Board of Directors in our defense to adjust our incentive award formula as well and got them to approve a share for us. And tomorrow morning at about 9:30, in the middle of Steve Turkle's weekly Lead Team meeting, monkeys will fly out of my butt.
-- Bill, who'd point out that we were on target for a payout in the middle of 2008 as well...
Comments:
"I couldn't make this $#!% up if I tried..."
Actually, you are making it up by ignoring the elephant in the room in your rant. I suppose the fact that you could have had this bonus and keep turning it down isn't important right? You'll be a cog in the machine right up until the day you choose not to be.
Actually, you are making it up by ignoring the elephant in the room in your rant. I suppose the fact that you could have had this bonus and keep turning it down isn't important right? You'll be a cog in the machine right up until the day you choose not to be.
# posted by 
: 11:45 AM
: 11:45 AM
Worker Unit, thank you for your fine writing, and factual comments. I KNOW you are honest, and perform with utmost integrity. Again, I will stand strong for guaranteed merit pool, vs. a 'maybe' bonus from Spiritless. Especially since they control the measurement device on 'if' a bonus gets awarded at all.
Remember if 2007 when they met with SPEEA asking if Merits could be held back to all SPEEA represented employees? Of course they offered in exchange a 'maybe' bonus in 2008? No guarantee of course, just a 'maybe'? WHAT???? SPEEA folks earned their merit raise, and Spiritless wanted to hold it back. I'm glad our Union didn't just say no, but said 'Hell No!'
Remember if 2007 when they met with SPEEA asking if Merits could be held back to all SPEEA represented employees? Of course they offered in exchange a 'maybe' bonus in 2008? No guarantee of course, just a 'maybe'? WHAT???? SPEEA folks earned their merit raise, and Spiritless wanted to hold it back. I'm glad our Union didn't just say no, but said 'Hell No!'
If most of us believed management would ever do something fair and equitable for us without a contract, we would never have succeeded in organizing the WTPU in the first place.
# posted by : 10:44 AM
: 10:44 AM
I wish we had a real union representing us. Even SPEEA would be better 6than what we have now.
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# posted by : 10:27 AM
: 10:27 AM