Posted on 02/27/2009 4:10:50 PM PST by nickcarraway
Earlier this week, as 3,000 employees of Spansion, the Sunnyvale semiconductor company, were being laid off, many of their bosses were getting pay increases.
That juxtaposition — against the backdrop of the deteriorating economy and nationwide anger about greedy executives — has triggered outrage among the workers who have been let go.
Scores of the laid-off workers jammed a West San Jose pizza parlor Thursday to join two class-action lawsuits against the firm and to vent their anger.
"It's just callous," said 38-year-old Eric Rebaker of Boulder Creek, who lost his job as a Spansion plant maintenance specialist. "To hurt all these families — it makes me absolutely angry.
The employee layoffs, constituting about 35 percent of Spansion's global workforce, were announced as a cost-cutting measure in a company news release Monday. In a separate filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission the same day, Spansion disclosed that its board had rescinded a six-month 10 percent pay cut imposed in October on some managers.
The decision to restore the pay was "to provide an incentive for executive officers and certain other key employees to remain employed by the company," the filing said.
Layoffs 'regrettable'
In a prepared statement Thursday, Spansion called the layoffs — which affected 615 California employees — "regrettable." But it added that "the board of directors made a strategic decision to restore the full salaries of our key executives to ensure their continued commitment to the company's future."
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Why not just threaten them with firing like they do the underlings? You know, "I can replace you with someone who will gladly work for half your salary!". It works on everyone else, and don't tell me there isn't anyone out there who wouldn't take the job for half the salary!
Dude. What someone makes at the TOP of your particular Food Chain has not much to do with you slugs that are actually DOING the work.
If so, we all would’ve revolted decades ago.
Wait! Maybe we SHOULD!
But, then, NONE of us would have a job at all... *SHRUG*
Seeing as they are down sizing, wouldn’t they be ex-Spansion employees?
“It’s just callous,”
Perhaps, but certainly not illegal.
A lot of people on here are actually quite liberal, apart from social conservative issues.
I agree. I wonder sometimes if people-namely, conservatives- realise the dichotomy of this kind of thinking and class resentment. It’s too easy for one aspect of socialism to become all-pervasive, just as has happened in the general population of this country.
Sounds to me like the affected employees have earned every right to judge.
As for me, I lost my job just over 2 years ago as did all my co-workers so that also puts me in the category of those who are able to cast judgment............Guilty!
So ... a janitor.
Time is short. Now is the time for our voices to be heard.
If a company cannot use the economic attraction of monetary reward this thing called Capitalism falls like a house of cards. Has anyone tried to point that out?
Of course, nobody questions the pay of steroid using athletes. As for theDemonRATs, they are on another steroid: power and control. When all three branches of government are dominated by the socialists, the balance of power that was guaranteed by the founding fathers, has been short circuited. This imbalance will take our nation down—way down.
Me too. We all had the opportunity to go to school and get degrees/advanced degrees and pursue the same opportunities and the same choices.
But we don't. We blaze our own path and make our own choices as to what and how we will do things in our lives.
Unfortunately, some of the choices we made 20,30 or 40 years ago are no longer valid.
Put another way - a guy making seven figures a year pays about several hundred thousand more in taxes a year than I make. Am I envious of the salary he makes, or am I happy I don't pay as much in taxes as he does? :-)
You may call it class envy. I call it “fair is fair”. I guess you think it OK for someone to fire their employees just so they can maintain their own salary. “dog eat dog”, and “fend for yourself, who cares about anyone else”, right, buddy?
Guess the laid off employees could always start up their own competing company if they have the smarts and can raise the capital.
Sad as it is you need to ensure your top employees don’t walk to the competition.
I guess you are like the liberals, anyone who doesn't agree with you is too stupid to draw breath, eh terry?
I take it you *are* aware that this phrase is a standard liberal excuse for just about anything.
Also, the FReepers are not engaging in "class envy". They are exhibiting a thirst for *equal treatment*.
If anyone other than a manager or executive screws up, they are summarily fired: even when their errors are too small to affect the bottom line in any significant fashion; often with "under the table" hits to their reputation which make it much harder for them to find another job.
Managers and executives are instead given large payouts, when the problems are often of their own making, and significantly impact the company in a negative fashion. And often they network with other clueless vermin who give them a fast track into *another* highly paid position.
Objecting to this isn't class envy: it is pointing out *theft*.
Nice try, though.
Cheers!
If a company ONLY rewards those above a certain pay level, regardless of performance, and punishes others through no fault of their own, by loss of their jobs, while those who screwed up are rewarded, that is not capitalism.
How's that astroturf working out for you, anyway?
There is such a thing as being compelled by conscience, without insisting that the state enforce things.
But when groups of people spend too long in their circle-jerk echo chamber, and justify excessive greed with specious arguments, rather than admitting *any degree of culpability whatsoever*, then *that* opens the door to the Obama-ites.
Nice try, though.
Cheers!
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