Please remind me, there is an economic downturn, yes? Economic stimulus packages are being put together quicker than I can make a sandwich. Banks and financial institutions are being slammed day after day for creating what has become the biggest financial mess since God knows when. So what do we hear in the last couple of days? CEO’s of two major corporations being rewarded with the very thing that got us all into this mess in the first place; massive retirement packages and pay rises that could buy a small island nation. Something tells me we ain’t learning nothing here.
A few days ago, we received the news that the CEO of Pacific Brands, Sue Morphett, is to receive a 170% pay rise. No, I haven’t got it wrong. I did write 170%! Now that wouldn’t be so bad, except Pacific Brands has just made a whole heap of people redundant. Why? Well, I suppose they couldn’t afford to keep employing them. Things are tough, you know. But hang on. If the company can’t afford to keep paying people, then where did Sue Morphett’s pay rise come from? No, you don’t need to have a Ph.D in Economics to see that, at the expense of her employees, Ms. Morphett has pocketed the money she couldn’t pay them!
Australia’s top union boss has launched a scathing attack on the chief executive of Pacific Brands, labelling her 170% pay hike last year “obscene” and a “corporate crime”.
But hold on. Ms. Morphett’s employees are not going away empty handed. They will get a handsome redundancy package. One such employee was ever so willing to share his financial joy.
FORTY-THREE years ago Ray Wade started work on the knitting machine at the Bonds factory in Wentworthville. This week, he was made redundant. His whole working life ended, unexpectedly, reduced to a payment of $200,000.
That’s alright isn’t it? Morphett receives $1,174, 225 and Mr. Wade receives $200,000. Gee, I don’t know why people are jumping up and down! Sounds fair to me! This is simple hard proof that the high end of town still do not care less about the little guy, and the economic problems affecting ordinary citizens does not even register on their radar. Unions are up in arms, as they should be, and are preparing some tough action to bring this CEO to her knees. But she will just wipe that off as union thuggery. Well, it’s no different from the corporate thuggery that she has demonstrated in accepting this massive pay rise.
But enough of Ms. Morphett. Let’s turn our gaze to Mr. Sol Trujillo, CEO of Telstra. Mr. Trujillo has been heading Telstra since 2005 and is now heading back to the United States to live a happy and contented retirement. That will be very easy for him once his $20,000,000 cheque clears.
OUTGOING Telstra boss Sol Trujillo will head home to the US with a payout estimated at more than $20 million.
The man who boasted about personally axing 10,000 Telstra jobs will quit as CEO in June.
Telstra’s share price has slumped from just over $5 when Mr Trujillo took over the company in 2005 to yesterday’s price of $3.68 – a decline of more than 25 per cent.
Mum and dad shareholders who bought T2 shares for $7.40 are way below the price they were enticed to buy the shares and barely breaking even on the $3.60 T3 float.
If a ‘golden handshake’ is meant to be a reward for what one has done for the company, then what has Trujillo done, apart from axe jobs, destroy shareholder profits and watch the share price plummet by 25%?
US President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, as with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s, centres around creating jobs. I am no economist, but the word ’stimulus’ conjures up images of ‘arousal’, ’stirring’, and ‘awakening’. It was the greed of the corporate world and their hunger to keep as much money for themselves, or to create as much personal wealth as they could, that got us into this mess in the first place. Governments all around the world are now patching up the mismanagement of the past and, God forbid, making the wealthy start to pay a little more, as they have the funds to take up the slack more than the average worker.
What these two CEO’s in particular are showing to us is that they still don’t care. But what is more frightening is the conservatives of the political world are jumping up and down and arguing against putting money into infrastructure such as Health and Education. They want to see a continuation of tax cuts for the wealthy, as they see a ‘trickle down’ effect, which will eventually get to the less fortunate. Well, you tell me how a 170% pay rise and a golden handshake of $20 Million is going to trickle down to anyone except the immediate family of both these CEO’s.
Just like the latest efforts to reduce carbon emissions are landing on critical ears of the wealthiest businesses, so it seems is their role in stimulating our economy. The wealthy are looking after the wealthy, and the poor and middle class are left to fend for themselves.
“It’s obscene,” ACTU(Australian Council of Trade Unions) president Sharan Burrow told ABC Television.
“Corporate Australia, it would seem, has lost its moral compass.”
Ms Burrow said the Bonds owner was cynically moving offshore to increase profits, despite receiving $15 million from taxpayers over the past two years to reskill and retool.
“It’s a crime, it’s a corporate crime, there’s no doubt about that.”
The rot needs to stop. And only governments and lawmakers can make that happen. President Obama rode in on a wave of ‘changing the way things are done in Washington.’ Corporate heads need to be put on notice, no matter how powerful they are, and be made to justify any form of pay rise or retirement pay out. If our governments don’t do this for us, then, as former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating stated in 1986, we are in danger of becoming a Banana Republic, because the elite will call the shots and will continue to have control over the lives and the financial future of not only this country, but many others.
March 1, 2009
And the rich still get richer
Posted by damob under Social commentaryLeave a Comment
Please remind me, there is an economic downturn, yes? Economic stimulus packages are being put together quicker than I can make a sandwich. Banks and financial institutions are being slammed day after day for creating what has become the biggest financial mess since God knows when. So what do we hear in the last couple of days? CEO’s of two major corporations being rewarded with the very thing that got us all into this mess in the first place; massive retirement packages and pay rises that could buy a small island nation. Something tells me we ain’t learning nothing here.
A few days ago, we received the news that the CEO of Pacific Brands, Sue Morphett, is to receive a 170% pay rise. No, I haven’t got it wrong. I did write 170%! Now that wouldn’t be so bad, except Pacific Brands has just made a whole heap of people redundant. Why? Well, I suppose they couldn’t afford to keep employing them. Things are tough, you know. But hang on. If the company can’t afford to keep paying people, then where did Sue Morphett’s pay rise come from? No, you don’t need to have a Ph.D in Economics to see that, at the expense of her employees, Ms. Morphett has pocketed the money she couldn’t pay them!
But hold on. Ms. Morphett’s employees are not going away empty handed. They will get a handsome redundancy package. One such employee was ever so willing to share his financial joy.
That’s alright isn’t it? Morphett receives $1,174, 225 and Mr. Wade receives $200,000. Gee, I don’t know why people are jumping up and down! Sounds fair to me! This is simple hard proof that the high end of town still do not care less about the little guy, and the economic problems affecting ordinary citizens does not even register on their radar. Unions are up in arms, as they should be, and are preparing some tough action to bring this CEO to her knees. But she will just wipe that off as union thuggery. Well, it’s no different from the corporate thuggery that she has demonstrated in accepting this massive pay rise.
But enough of Ms. Morphett. Let’s turn our gaze to Mr. Sol Trujillo, CEO of Telstra. Mr. Trujillo has been heading Telstra since 2005 and is now heading back to the United States to live a happy and contented retirement. That will be very easy for him once his $20,000,000 cheque clears.
If a ‘golden handshake’ is meant to be a reward for what one has done for the company, then what has Trujillo done, apart from axe jobs, destroy shareholder profits and watch the share price plummet by 25%?
US President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, as with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s, centres around creating jobs. I am no economist, but the word ’stimulus’ conjures up images of ‘arousal’, ’stirring’, and ‘awakening’. It was the greed of the corporate world and their hunger to keep as much money for themselves, or to create as much personal wealth as they could, that got us into this mess in the first place. Governments all around the world are now patching up the mismanagement of the past and, God forbid, making the wealthy start to pay a little more, as they have the funds to take up the slack more than the average worker.
What these two CEO’s in particular are showing to us is that they still don’t care. But what is more frightening is the conservatives of the political world are jumping up and down and arguing against putting money into infrastructure such as Health and Education. They want to see a continuation of tax cuts for the wealthy, as they see a ‘trickle down’ effect, which will eventually get to the less fortunate. Well, you tell me how a 170% pay rise and a golden handshake of $20 Million is going to trickle down to anyone except the immediate family of both these CEO’s.
Just like the latest efforts to reduce carbon emissions are landing on critical ears of the wealthiest businesses, so it seems is their role in stimulating our economy. The wealthy are looking after the wealthy, and the poor and middle class are left to fend for themselves.
The rot needs to stop. And only governments and lawmakers can make that happen. President Obama rode in on a wave of ‘changing the way things are done in Washington.’ Corporate heads need to be put on notice, no matter how powerful they are, and be made to justify any form of pay rise or retirement pay out. If our governments don’t do this for us, then, as former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating stated in 1986, we are in danger of becoming a Banana Republic, because the elite will call the shots and will continue to have control over the lives and the financial future of not only this country, but many others.
If that happens, then God help us.
Enjoyyour day