Laid-Off Spansion Employees Outraged Over Execs' Pay Increases

but when the chips are down they want to get paid for that extra 15 minutes after taking an hour and a half for lunch, take their paid time off when I can't get a day off. When we need to canvass to bring in new customers..."sorry, I have to go pick up my kids."

There is a reason for that: the employee sees an employer who refuses to pay them a decent wage. Why should I bend over backward to help someone out when I know it won't do me any good. I know, I've been there. Busted my hump for a company for 14 years, came in early, left late, Did jobs I wasn't required to do ("not in my job classification") because I believed it was the best for the comapny and what was best for the company was best for me. I knew things about that business that the President and CEO had no clue about. Who was more indespensible, him or me?
I never kissed butt, so eventually they got rid of me (along with other middle management-types). Two days didn't go by and they were calling me for help on things. Do you think I gave it to them? Not a chance! Treat you employees like crap and you get crap work out of them, treat them right and they'll make you proud they work for you and not someone else, that's what I'm talking about, not some low-life who's just looking for a paycheck (there are too many of those, I'll give you that!).

Also, the FReepers are not engaging in "class envy". They are exhibiting a thirst for *equal treatment*.

Who should decide what is equal? None of us know the details of the situation. The company has lost money...whose fault is it? Perhaps the guilty have already been fired, or maybe the market collapsed beneath them through no fault of their own.

Additionally, equal treatment should be based on equivalent circumstances and value. It is a sad fact of life that certain people are of more value to an organization than others. Is it fair that the aging running back gets cut to accommodate the new star? Equal treatment...that won't win the football game. Who gets to judge the value?...those who are paying the bills.

The point is that the board representing the owners(shareholders) are making decisions to close facilities, reduce shifts or whatever and they have decided that it is necessary to give the management and key players the raises that were previously delayed. They most likely didn't do this because they liked one group and wanted to piss on the other. They most likely based their decision on what they thought was best for the company and therefore the owners.

Can you come up with pathological examples to prove your points? Probably...however, there was nothing in this article to indicate that management is corrupt and doing anything other than what is necessary to protect the value of the shareholders.

Why should I bend over backward to help someone out when I know it won't do me any good. I know, I've been there. Busted my hump for a company for 14 years, came in early, left late, Did jobs I wasn't required to do ("not in my job classification") because I believed it was the best for the comapny and what was best for the company was best for me. I knew things about that business that the President and CEO had no clue about. Who was more indespensible, him or me?

The Peter Principle ensures that there will always be incompetent, stupid, or corrupt managers. If you busted your hump for 14 years and the management didn't recognize your value then:
A. Your management was stupid/blind and you shouldn't have waited around for them to fire you...you should have quit and taken your services to someplace else where you would be valued appropriately.
B. You weren't as valuable from their perspective as you thought. Even if you didn't share your knowledge, I am sure they eventually figured it out. Very few people are irreplacable and we all have to make sure that our value/pain-in-the-ass ratio remains far above 1.

Here's my point put another way.

The typical throwaway line is "management deserves the pay and money since they have such challenging jobs, and the workers aren't contributing value."

The answer is that everyone knows the workers are a cost, they are not supposed to contribute value.

The management, however, *is* supposed contribute value. And saying "but times are TOUGH" isn't good enough: any fool can make money hand over fist in a growing economy. The differential pay should come from improved performance -- and losing money in a down economy is also easy.

E.g. how much did the CEO of Citigroup burn through? Or Jeffrey Immelt, the heir to all the supposedly "world-beating" best practices, deep managment bench, six-sigma techniques of Jack Welch?

If Welch's techniques were good, they'd have worked in good times and bad. As it is, they were merely window dressing to disguise the climate of fear which drove people to put in many extra hours and extraordinary efforts, lest they be counted among the bottom 10% and fired, and the outsize returns generated by all the extra work for which the employees were not being paid. What is the "business case" for the $2 million pension Welch recieves? How does it benefit the company, now that it has been demonstrated that his policies did not work outside of the boom times?

IN other words, managers demand an outside reward when times are good, because "you need to pay for performance". They take all the credit for the company's performance, regardless of how much is just due to a rising economy. But when times are bad, they demand higher pay, since "you need good people when times are tough"; and they externalize the poor performance to "outside factors". Heads I win, tails you lose.

But this attitude is never extended to those who actually produce the product, or implement strategies--only to those who golf and engage in useless circle-jerks for a living.

Let's see some executives reduced to poverty without warning when the company screws up (loss of jobs + claw-backs) and then you'll see less of what you misleadingly call "class envy". It's not the wealth, but the utter craven dishonesty.

Cheers!

Management and everyone else deserves what ever those who are paying think that they are worth. The buyer ultimately decides whether or not they are willing to pay the price just as the seller ultimately decides what price he will accept.

In one sense you are right, workers who contribute no value, who are interchangeable cogs, are only costs that can be cut, replaced, etc.

Employees that achieve and improve to add value to themselves and the company are assets that are not as easily replaced and in a competent organization they will be appropriately valued.

These greedy-incompetent-insensitive...CEOs and executives negotiated deals with boards representing shareholders. It is the shareholders money, and if they choose to negotiate one-sided deals it is their perogative. I don't agree with it and the chickens have come home to roost for these investors.

Unfortunately, the lemmings have been running in sufficient mass to push us all off of the cliff. Now the government is riding in on elephants to "Rescue" us and install a regime where fairness will be legislated...at least according to their view of fairness.

Boards have not been doing their jobs in negotiating good agreements with management and in enforcing accountability. It is the shareholders who should hold the boards acountable, but many would rather complain about the "unfairness" of it all and have the government step in to fix it. Of course they weren't complaining when the management was making them money hand over fist. Unfortuneately, the government is more corrupt and incompetent than almost any company so let's see how this works out.

As far as exorbitant pensions go, what is the business case for any pension? It is negotiated to entice the hiring and continued employment of valued personnel. It has no value to the company after the service, but it is part of the deal. Again, it is the reponsibility of the boards/shareholders to ensure they are not overpaying for talent. Apparently, in this buy-now-pay-later world, it has been too easy for companies as well as governments to overlook the future impact of overly generous pensions.

Much of this boils down to responsible ownership. You see it on a smaller scale in sports teams all of the time where some owners significantly overpay for free-agents who ultimately don't produce. The teams then suffer through a rebuilding process and if managed well, will eventually rebound. Look at how much money many of these apparently very smart people thow away.

Some owners/shareholders will always gamble for those free-agents that they hope will take them to the super bowl. They need to be smarter about negotiating the contracts, not ask the government to step in and put them in the playoffs.

Is it a capitalist virtue to reward bad performance?

Not if it is my capital. You can do what you want with yours.

The point is that those spending the money (shareholders)are the ones that should be concerned. If they are competent then they will ensure they elect competent boards of directors who act responsibly and hold their employees accountable...if not...a fool and his money are soon parted.

The biggest problem is that Fed monetary policies have created and encouraged an environment where speculation is rewarded more than production. Money follows the rewards and large profits create irrational frenzy. This creates bubbles which will eventually burst (see dot.com now real estate) and now you see the fall-out. Federal guarantees and mandates encouraged bankers to totally miscalculate risks and once the bubble burst, they were caught grossly under-capitalized.

How many companies with seemingly competent management before the storm have been caught in the downward spiral? Should shareholders fire all management? They must all be incompetent if their companies are falling on hard times. Fire all the evil, stupid management but keep the workers on the unprofitable production lines producing widgets that no one is buying...yeah, that's the ticket.

I'm not saying that all management should be spared the firing squad, I'm saying that it is the shareholders, through their boards of directors and the officers of the company, that should be making the call.

you should have quit and taken your services to someplace else where you would be valued appropriately.

You are right. I just found that out too late. I was too trusting in the belief that people believed in the worth of others. Most management personnel could care less about those who work for them and are too busy kissing ass of those above them so they can get ahead, and the hell with anyone else.
After 14 years at one place you start to feel pretty secure and start looking to setting up retirement. Unfortunately, management starts seeing you as a liability to be rid of, you cost them too much. Maybe that's why top management people negotiate golden parachutes - they know they'll be dumped when others decide they "cost too much". Too bad the "little people" can't do that unless thay have a union to protect them - oh but unions are bad, right?
I'm not a champion of unions - too corrupt at this point in time - but how else can a "minion" protect himself against those who love to fire people just to be able to maintain their own pay level? People who fire others and give themselves raises because they "saved the bottom line" are despicable to me, I don't care what anyone thinks.
I started a business and sold it for profit after 5 years and "let the buyer beware" was not my creed. I never thought to "stick it" to my customers or my workers, just so I got mine.
Unfortunately, that is not the case with most people who get to the top of management these days. That being the case, how can anyone wonder why those who work for these people just don't give a s__t about the company or those they work for? Explain that to me!

Oh, BTW the company I worked 14 years for wasn't the same company in 1987 as it was in 2001. It was a joy to work for them in 1987, but it was a seriously different place in 2001. 1987: you did good, you got bonuses, i.e. time off not counted on your leave bank, write-off on your company AMEX for a night out once in awhile, etc. 2001: any time other than "normal" work hours charged to your leave bank, even if you'd been there all night to fix a client's problem - 24 hours at the office meant nothing to these people, if you weren't ther during your normal shift, they charged you for the time off and refused to recognize the off hours you spent to help a client and make the company look good.
Yes, it is my fault that I spent too much time at a company like that. But it wasn't like that when I started there and I hoped it would go back to the way it had been when they realized that no one had ever quit before they started doing such crap, but they didn't. As far as I know, to this day they are still bad. They went from being a solid, reliable company, to just another place that expects a high-turnover rate, which mean, to me, that they do not value their employees.
Tell me I'm wrong, and explain that to me!

The company has consistently lost money since it went public and was $133 million in the red for the third quarter of 2008, the most recent period for which it has disclosed financial data. The company's stock closed Thursday at 5 cents; its 52-week high is $3.70.

In addition to the layoffs, Spansion recently announced it would delay paying some of its debt and consider selling itself or merging with another company.

Making sure its top executives stick around during tough times could be an important selling point if Spansion wants to attract a buyer, said Jim Balassone, an executive in residence at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Looks like the funeral is just around the corner for this company anyway. It's dead, Jim.

>>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.”

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! <<

Even in downturns there can be key employees that are worth making an effort to keep.

Boards have not been doing their jobs in negotiating good agreements with management and in enforcing accountability. It is the shareholders who should hold the boards acountable, but many would rather complain about the "unfairness" of it all and have the government step in to fix it. Of course they weren't complaining when the management was making them money hand over fist. Unfortuneately, the government is more corrupt and incompetent than almost any company so let's see how this works out.

Good point -- but here's the salient feature.

The upper levels of management (C-level and boards) are all in bed with one another to feather each other's nests: they ensure they control most of the voting stock, *and* have set procedures in place to make sure it is almost impossible for the aggregate of minor shareholders to vote out board members. So the "accountability", the check-and-balance, has been disabled. On purpose.

And the people that suffer are NOT those who abused the system: rather, they have made sure they are rewarded handsomely, unjustly, at the expense of those they have screwed--and that the screwed get the blame, too. ("No American has a right to a job", "Americans are not good enough to do this work--now go train your Third World replacement", etc.) American workers put a man on the moon 40 years ago, without the influx of Third Worlders.

And that is another reason for the cry for government to come in, the deck has been stacked.

Ironically, you are right that government is just as corrupt and incompetent -- look at the hue-and-cry over immigration, over the Pork-and-Awe Porkulus bill. Did Congress listen? No, because they have set up procedural barriers to *their* ever being accountable.

Jesse Ventura (former governor of Minnesota) had a lot to say about this, when he first tried to enter politics, and how hard it was even to become mayor of a minor suburb. And it only gets worse, the higher up you go.

The problem is, the feedback and accountability mechanisms have completely broken down -- until a gigantic crisis, and sometimes not even then. Leftists in the press make sure of that. What is worse, texting sexual messages to same-sex pages who are over 18, or having $90,000 cash in your freezer?

The three main problems with government are due to the 13th, 17th, and 19th Amendments: and to the consequent expansion of national government at the expense of local government.

Try reading this and this.

Cheers!

Even in downturns there can be key employees that are worth making an effort to keep.

If the management were any good, by definition, then the company would be making so much money, even in downturns, they wouldn't need to lay anyone off.

Management is supposedly paid handsomely in order to make the strategic decisions which enable the company to thrive.

It's funny how, whenever times are good, that's due to management's genius, so they deserve exorbitant salaries; but whenever the company is doing bad, it's always due to external factors, so management needs to be paid exorbitant salaries, because talented management is so hard to find.

But for workers, when times are good, the workers don't deserve any extra money, since the boom times are not the result of their hard work, but just the general economy, and the workers don't deserve anything extra due to good luck; but when times are bad, that means the workers suck, and so they should be let go.

Bullshit.

The idea is for the savings to offset any increase in my taxes.

I essentially did the same thing as those execs. I’m not sorry about it, why should they be?

I don't see why you should be sorry either, so what's your point? That you don't understand my point?

Here it is:
Why do companies always consider their top brass indespensible, but the people are bottom are just replacable cogs? The people at the top are not irreplacable. If they where, the company would fall apart when that person, or persons, died, or left for other positions.
Why are they always willing to pay top dollar to someone at the top, but not at the bottom (not literally the bottom, like janitors and such, which are usually out-sourced anyway, but I hope you get my meaning and will refrain from being sarcastic). I think I proved my point in one post showing how valuable I was (notice - "valuable", not "indespensible"). There was a certain type of mux/router we had a client's locations (it was their selection, but they did not know how to operate them!). I had to learn how to manage them and I kept detailed documentation on them as they were very complicated for what we were doing with them.

My company knew this, but no one wanted to spend the time to learn them so as to be my backup. When new management came in, and brought in their own people to run things, they were unaware of this equipment. Two days after I was "let go", the client wanted some changes done to the mux/router, and the new people could not figure it out. The client got irate and asked where I was and was told I had been let go (I was quite friendly with their one IT guy and he called me and told me this info later).

The client told my ex-company that they'd better get me back, or fix it by the next day.
I was called but refused to help them. Why? They would pay me $100 (before taxes, of courses) to walk them through the procedure. That would take hours. Plus, I was not asked to "early retire". I was not given severance. I was told to quit or be fired. Fired for not informing "someone" of a change I had done to a Cisco router earlier that morning of the day I was fired (they were that quick. Obviously looking for a way to get rid of me. This also happened to other mid-level managers I found out later. It was the company's way of getting rid of us cheap).
I had never "informed" anyone of any changes I made before and continued to work there, so what do you think it was? Why should I help out someone like that.
And like I had said before, It wasn't the company I had started to work for 14 years earlier.

But why do companies always get rid of the little people and hardly ever lay-off top brass? It's because it's the top brass who decide who will be let go! You think they're going to fire themselves?
Companies have gone to replacing whole divisions with foriegn off-shore workers. Why doesn't a company outsource their executive staff. I'm sure you could find one in India or Pakistan who would work for a whole lot less than what you have now! Hmmmm . . . .

Well the gang at the top is not irreplaceable, but it’s usually more difficult to replace those folks than anyone lower on the totem pole.

It’s actually pretty easy to replace labor, in my experience. The worst that can happen is that they have some specialized, topical knowledge, so we would have a rough few weeks in the transition, but it works out.

As for top dollar, there’s no need to give top dollar for people that are relatively easy to replace. A good compensation, yes.

My point was that it’s perfectly reasonable to fire people downline, and also give yourself (on top of the food chain) a raise.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.