Wow – big cheeses are taking pay cuts!
I have to be honest – I do not have a problem with people earning whopping great salaries. My opinion is that if you are good enough to run a successful company – then you deserve the salary to match.
“Successful” being an operative word.
According to the Dom Post today, the CEO of Fisher & Paykel (A New Zealand manufacturer of washing machines and fridges), is going to take a 7.5% pay cut in the fallout from the Financial Crises and the fact that F&P shares have now dropped to 65c.
Sounds good, right? At last – a boss who is personally going to take a pay cut to help the company and hopefully avoid redundancies. Not so fast: He currently earns $1.1million. A 7.5% pay cut means his salary is now going to be a mere $1,017,500. Of course – it is also reported that the Execs at F&P will be taking a pay cut – of 5% -to help keep the company afloat in hard times.
If you keep reading – you then find out that Front Line staff are going to be rostered an extra day off a month to reduce costs. With usually 20 working days a month – this means – you guessed it – they also end up with about a 5% pay cut (it just doesn’t say that!).
Now – being fair – it is probably hard for anyone to take a pay cut. The boss may be earning over a million – but if he’s anything like the vast majority of people – he may well have mortgages and costs that take all of that money – so it may not be an easy call for him and his family to be without that $82,500 income.
But the worst thing about this – is that the Government is keeping an eye on the company in case they need to step in and bail it out! I expect the CEO to take a bit more than a 7.5% pay cut before my tax dollars get used to shore up the company thank you very much.
The cherry on top is that F&P hasn’t actually said they have made a loss yet. All this is due to a “Slump in Profits”. The company is still making a profit – just not as big a profit as last year – yet front line staff, who are highly unlikely to be able to carry a 5% pay cut – have to do so.
Hmmm.
Related posts:
- Wow II Bosses taking pay freezes.
- A Nine-Day Fortnight for New Zealand?
- When is a Nine Day Fortnight only 8 and a bit days long?
Comments
One Comment on Wow – big cheeses are taking pay cuts!
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Hubby on
Sat, 21st Feb 2009 7:02 pm
It now looks like the Govt. is considering a four day week for some companies, with the 5th day ‘part paid’ for by the Govt. as long as employee’s attend skills training programs (good idea) or do community work (good idea too). Why spend tax $$ on employee’s who are still in work?
It’s a much better option than having to pay the ‘fulltime’ cost of being unemployed, a reduced tax take for the Govt., reduced spending from the family of the unemployed person too, and with those folks out of a job and stuggling to get back into work. All in all, unemployment ain’t good for all of us.
So, a damn fine idea really.
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