We Want Our Bonuses!

By Mark Evans | Published: March 19, 2009

To keep the senior management team engaged during Nortel’s restructuring process, Nortel is seeking court approval tomorrow to approve US$23-million bonus plan. This comes on the heels of court approval earlier this month that approved a $22-million incentive plan for about 880 employees.

Canadian Press has more details, while I did a blog post on the incentive programs last month – AAN post.

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  • whatnext4nt

    As Diane Urquhart explains in her interview on Canada AM, the bonuses are for cost cutting, and cost cutting is primarily achieved by letting go employees without severance and reducing their pensions.

    Essentially, this is stealing money from severed and retired employees and government employment and insurance plans to pay executives undeserved and unneeded bonuses. Nice.

  • less

    But, uh, whats Mike up against:

    Nostradamn

    What's wrong with doing your job right in the first place? Why do we need to reward people for doing what should be expected? The workers on the plant floors are the people that actually touch the product and they get an hourly rate regardless of their good work yet some big wig that cuts out a process “needs” to be rewarded for only doing his job? Trust me the poor and lower class WILL revolt. The writing is on the wall and there WILL be a shift in the world. Mark my words, the US will be in trouble with riots and killings when Obama has been taken out. He is a great man and is a caring man but he will be gone and that is when the US will fall. The rich can't hide and the poor will take back what is theirs. The end is coming and I welcome it.

    Duh… trust me… Obama great… US evil… rich get richer… poor revolt.. take back whats theirs… via riots.. killings… New World Order… end is near… Bushitler… global warming.. US will fall… mark my words…

  • longgone

    same here……

  • http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

    What you say has been the sentiment of many who have been abused by this management. I applaud you for bringing this to the attention of the public at large.

    Back when we first learned about the full details of KEIP I wrote about how the KEIP bonuses were directly tied to cost cutting layoffs. Thank you for broadcasting this completely unethical behavior by management.

  • forgive

    Perfect timing when AIG's execs can receive 1.3B bonus. Compared with AIG's scandal, Nortel's is nothing.

    What can you do about it? As Obama said, the bonus is legal written contract. Can small investors or (current ot ex) employees aford paying lawyer to have legal fight on this? No,

  • billeee

    Sad, Not sure how a judge can actually approve this but they did…

    http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idCA…

  • less

    “The damage that could be done to (Nortel) as a result of employees leaving or losing focus on their jobs demonstrates the need to provide supplemental motivation,” said John Dempsey, a member of the Mercer firm and one of the people who helped formulate the incentive plan, according to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper

  • ERworker

    [quote]Either way bonuses are usually associated with work or performance well done,and Nortel's current situation is a far cry from that measure.[/quote]

    EXCEPT in the case of too many CEO's and their cronies. They operate under a sense of entitlement where the only rule is “what's in it for me?” These guys measure each other by the size of the contracts they can negotiate for themselves. Actual performance has very little to do with it any more. Especially when there are so many convenient excuses out there to fall back on.

  • ERworker

    Outrage – pure and simple. And we (the still surviving) are still expected to stay focused while our execs are partying in Ottawa right now, celebrating their victory over common sense and decency today? While a little extra for work done well is always nice, the best thing anyone could do for the rank and file that Nortel absolutely depends on to get the work done and keep the customers happy would be to have the entire executive team exit out the back door as quickly as possible. That would work miracles for my morale!!

    And these GEniuses that have had 3 years to come up with a workable plan now are working “as quickly as possible” to come up with a viable way to save the company and get it done in just a couple of months. Get real!! They haven't had hardly a clue in 3 years, they aren't going to get one in a few weeks. And yet the courts reward these guys for this stuff?

    This has been another sobering dose of reality for those of us in the trenches, while the “good 'ol boys club” continue to laugh at us. Sooner or later the serfs will revolt once again.

  • whatnext4nt
  • angryexNortel

    Everyone at the company still should take 2 weeks of their vacation starting next week. See how much they will miss all of you, then maybe they will add a bonus for the employees not to leave, but alas it does not work that way.

  • victimofnortel

    Nortel's executive team is the biggest frauds…. Black mailing to get their money…..

    What a company????

    Executive after executive….they are just after money….

  • InTheField

    What a dilemna for these 880 employees…accept the bonus and become one of the greedy execs, or maintain their integrity?

  • bankrupt_bob

    Wait! I finally get it! This is really all a bad dream and I'm about to wake up! ;>)

  • InTheField

    What a dilemna for these 880 employees…accept the bonus and become one of the greedy execs, or maintain their integrity?

  • bankrupt_bob

    Wait! I finally get it! This is really all a bad dream and I'm about to wake up! ;>)

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