http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15926
By INQUIRER staff: Saturday 15 May 2004, 18:49
EARLIER THIS week Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer apparently suggested that the way to keep American jobs was to lower US professionals' pay to $55,000 - according to a report here.
That will help jobs stay in America, Ballmer seems to be implying, faced with competition from outsourced workers who will accept much less.
According to this report on Cnet last September, Steve B and Bill G each got $551,667 in salary and $313,447 in bonuses last year.
Neither got any additional stock options then, but each already has plenty of shares in MSFT.
Perhaps Steve should start by cutting his own salary by a tenth, as he is undoubtedly a US professional, and set that as the benchmark for the rest of the thousands of employees at Microsoft?
No one has yet matched HP's chutzpah in helping to engineer a plan which involved laying off people in North America and then trying to re-hire them at a fraction of what they were earning before.
But maybe it's worth contemplating Steve. An outsourced CEO is an idea that hasn't yet been tried and it would certainly cut down on expenses. µ
Standard OSS tactic: "Hey, let's change the subject to Microsoft."