"Did we miss the editorial pronouncement that some consider Gannett's executive bonuses 'sinful' and that 'returning the bonuses would provide some atonement?'"
-- Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey's public affairs director, Thomas W. Rubino, in a letter to the editor published today in The Daily Journal, criticizing the paper's Sunday story about how much the insurer paid its CEO. Rubino asked why the story did not include the amount Gannett paid CEO Craig Dubow last year. He also noted another detail absent from the story: that Gannett laid off 1,400 employees in July 2009, including 120 at the Journal and five other N.J. Gannett dailies.
Related: Dubow got paid $4.7 million last year, including a $1.45 million cash bonus. (Total pay to Dubow and four other top officers.)
OUCH! Imagine, a newspaper corporation having to atone for its own sins... Never happen!
ReplyDeleteThat is an oddly superficial story. Michael Diamond is an excellent reporter at the Asbury Park Press. But the volume of copy excpected of the two, I think, on the Business reporting staff is unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that Dubow got such a big pay increase in a year Gannett was whining poverty while laying off veteran journalists and forcing pay cuts and unpaid furloughs.
I agree with Rubin that what's missing from that story is a far bigger story than what two CEOs get.
Of course one could argue BCBS is a non-profit, that money could have been used to preserve lives, and has a fiduciary responsibility to improve patient's access to care, lives, etc. whereas Gannett is a for-profit company whose fiduciary responsibility is to shareholders.
ReplyDeleteone could...
All CEO's get paid too much but to vote yourself a raise in a year when you laid off over a thousand people and furloughed the rest is not acceptable. I wonder if Dubow would have been able to get a raise at all if he were not chairman of the board. That is man with NO morals or ethics leading company with NO morals or ethics. How many families could have lived off of his bonus alone? Shouldn't a lead be the first to stand up and take the hit? Lead my example. The captain is supposed to go down with the ship not take all the treasure and jump ship.
ReplyDeleteDubow and others of his ilk are leading by example. The example is textbook corporate greed.
ReplyDeleteYet on another posting, we find employees using their own cameras, smart phones, etc. for company business and they are so pleased they get a partial reimbursement.
Wake up folks! All you're doing is adding more to the executive feedbag. And you've already given enough in terms of pay freezes, higher insurance premiums, frozen pension plans, and insignificant raises of 1 to 2 percent when the execs are feeling flush.
Oh, and let's not forget heavier workloads thanks to the layoffs. Every extra story you do simply reinforces corporate's game plan: Sweat the profit out of the peons.
Good on Rubino for holding a mirror up to this wretchedly hypocritical company. Too bad he didn't also mention the furlough money extracted from the rest of us that went straight to line the pockets of those greedy non-leaders in upper management.
ReplyDeleteha ha let the chickens come home to roost in McLean, maybe they could do a little scratching and maybe something worse. Would any regular employee be able to take four months off on medical, return to work and get a whopping big bonus? Doubtful.
ReplyDeletenow repeat after me and go back to work:
I pledge allegence to profit statement
of the Corporate States of America
and to the companies for which it stands
One corporation, unregulated.
With stock options and bonuses for all (executives)
How exactly did they get raises and bonuses in a time of financially punishing furloughs and, for so many, career-ending layoffs?
ReplyDeleteIs it in their contracts? If not, who made the decision? Did the board vote to reward Dubow and Co. so disproportionately? And who elects the board?
Don't shareholders have a say in board actions? Aren't most of us shareholders? Can we not lodge a protest or at least point out how disheartening and shameful their actions were, how greedy and unconcerned they look, and how anyone, with any sense, can see that that makes them unfit to lead?
And could they have not conducted themselves with honor and declined, like at the Washington Post?