Tribune Co. proposed paying its top 43 executives a severance package of cash and benefits if they are asked by a new board to leave the company after the Chicago-based media conglomerate emerges from bankruptcy.
The company didn’t put a price tag on the package, but said it amounts to 2.5 times salary and bonus for Chief Executive Randy Michaels, and 2.25 times salary and bonus for Chief Operating Officer Gerry Spector. Both would be entitled to 24 months of the company’s group health benefits.
Nine other top executives, including Tony Hunter, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, and Eddy Hartenstein, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, would get 1.75 times salary and bonus plus 24 months of benefits. A list of 32 others would get 1.5 times salary and 18 months of benefits.
GREAT. That's just great. Forty-two million dollars or whatever the hell is basically a newspaper. You could basically buy a newspaper, albeit a small-town newspaper not full of overpaid "brands" and their sociopathic bosses, for what these top-drawer jerkoffs are going to get should their companies decide to jettison their asses.
Seriously, why are we not discussing, at all, banning or severely limiting severance packages when we talk about capping CEO pay and other socialistic ways to punish Scrooge McDuck's spiritual children? I'm not talking about reasonable compensation for people who get laid off, by the way. Severances that take into account longtime service to a company in a sensible fashion are only fair. Double your salary and all your insurance says to you, "Go on, do your worst, you'll be taken care of."
If you told me I would get twice my salary and two years of health insurance if only I screwed up so badly I got fired, do you know how little incentive I would have to actually succeed? I'm profoundly lazy, people, and all I wanted to do this summer was lie on the beach. If you gave me that option, and it came with basically free money and health care so that I could keep paying the mortgage, I'd get canned SO FAST.
A.
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Of course they will tell you that their ego won't let them mess around and fail. And how hard they work. You know what we never see? Follow up interviews with these MOUs.
"So you screwed the pooch, do you think you deserve the x million you got?"
Yes.
"Really? What if you were on the board and you were asked to give the same outgoing severance to the failures, would you?"
Posted by: Spocko | August 02, 2010 at 15:25
Then again, if you really fucking wanted someone gone... maybe this is the "carrot" approach.
Posted by: whet moser | August 02, 2010 at 15:39
outrageous cash and benefits for the rich = free market capitalism, endorsed by God himself.
the slightest bit of help for the working class = goddamned socialism, you communist piece of shit.
Thank you Rush, Hannity, Murdoch, Palin, Tea Party fucktards, et. al.
Posted by: Sandman | August 02, 2010 at 15:42
And how many folks making $ 30 k a year could you pay for 52 million ? Keeping 1700 folks employed would be a good idea too.
Posted by: MapleStreet | August 02, 2010 at 17:09
I hear you but how is this different from any corporate overlord's golden parachute, while the workers are lucky to a few weeks' severance, if they get anything? It's all the same.
Posted by: Southern Beale | August 02, 2010 at 20:30
rewarding hard werk.
it don't pay being not chosen
Posted by: pansypoo | August 02, 2010 at 20:42