Philly news execs got bonuses before bankruptcy

[Robbien]

Source: AP

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The chairman of Philadelphia Newspapers confirms that top executives received December bonuses, weeks before the company filed for bankruptcy.

Chairman Bruce Toll told The Associated Press that Chief Executive Brian Tierney and two others were doing a "very good job" and had not gotten raises since the 2006 purchase.

The three were also awarded raises that have since been rescinded amid an outcry from creditors and employees who gave up $25-a-week raises. Tierney's salary had been set to climb $232,000, to $850,000.

A Philadephia Magazine blog cites Toll as saying Tierney received a $350,000 bonus and two others $150,000 each. Toll told the AP he does not remember the amounts.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hHQUvVDrqSdjUDcvKs1v3QGKKK1AD978K9CO1

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[pattmarty]

1. This is "bred" into our corporate system. Until the greed culture...........

..............changes or is changed, shit is gonna stay the same.

[LiberalFighter]

2. There needs to be a law that prohibits this from happening.

It is one thing to receive a bonus and the business is operating in the black.

It is another thing to receive a bonus while cutting wages of employees and/or anticipating going into bankruptcy.

[ArcticFox]

5. Good idea

We could start by prohibiting execs from taking home more than 75 times what the most lowly paid worker makes.

[LiberalFighter]

8. That is too high. I say it should be no more than 20 times

Someone making $20,800 a year would have their boss making $416,000
Someone making $52,000 a year would have their boss making $1,040,000

Maybe 30 times but not more than that.
That would then be $624,000 for $20,800 and $1,584,000 for $52,000.

More money would go back into the company or to the shareholders.

In addition, the restriction would also be in force for benefits, bonuses, pension, 401k, etc. But here is the twist. If the lowest employed worker does not receive benefits, bonuses, pension, 401k, etc. the top management should not either.

And here may be the added bonus. CEO's like exporting those jobs to other countries because they pay less. So those employees would be the base rate to determine the top salary.

[ArcticFox]

9. excellent

I had not thought of the offshore jobs.

[notesdev]

3. "The Bezzle" marches on

This is the kind of BS that needs to be purged if we are EVER to have an economic recovery. Nobody is going to invest in a country where investments can be stolen without consequence.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. God forbid newspaper CEO's become generic creditors in bankruptcy.

Getting pennies on their dollars.

Hope it's the last time they get money from any source.

[MessiahRp]

6. Top Executives always get bonuses, it's the hard workers at the bottom that get fucked...

I'd have no qualms if the people making far less got a nice hefty bonus before bankruptcy but it never works that way does it?

When I worked at Wal-Mart about 10 years ago, there were annual bonuses for the regular workers based on a store's sales, growth and certain performance expectations.

We always met sales and growth goals... the store was incredibly successful but we never met performance goals because they were based on getting customers through checkout, etc and we were always hideously understaffed. As we found out later, our Store Manager also had a bonus he could make if he could keep overhead at a certain point in conjunction with his sales numbers. So he purposely kept us understaffed so he could cut overhead and make his own bonus.

We never got our bonuses (which also probably helped keep his costs down and helped him work towards his own bonus) which would have been a measley $300. His bonus? Approx. $30k.

I don't know how it works now but there were quite a few of us Wal-Mart workers at the time that were pissed almost to the point of mutiny over that.

Rp

[elleng]

7. This seems to be a 'habit.'

.

[amandabeech]

10. I hope that the bankruptcy job can claw these back and find a way to punish the assholes on top of

it.

We change and hope in the corporate culture that has infiltrated every institution, and every nook and crany of our country.