Word: pension
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...Still others--including employees at such giants as AT&T, Boise Cascade and Starwood Hotels--have had to accept pay freezes that, when rising prices are factored in, amount to reduced compensation. To add insult to injury, companies everywhere are reducing bonuses and overtime and eroding health and pension benefits...
...chief executives rose 15% in 2002, according to Equilar, a firm that studies CEO compensation. That amounts to about 200 times the pay of the average worker, up from 56 times in 1989, according to the Journal of Economic Issues. Nowhere is this disparity starker than in the audacious pension guarantees and bonuses proposed for top executives at struggling AMR, parent of American Airlines. The carrier recently asked the unions representing its machinists, flight attendants and pilots for $9 billion in wage givebacks and other concessions over five years to keep the jets flying. Captain Mike Leone, a veteran pilot...
Meanwhile, the brass at AMR quietly landed pension guarantees worth $41 million--benefits that, unlike those of the workers, will be protected even if AMR goes bankrupt. Succumbing to public pressure, AMR backed off on another issue: its proposed "retention" bonuses for top executives. A flap over that cost CEO Donald Carty his job. But the executive pensions remain in place. Investing legend Warren Buffett, who has been campaigning against executive compensation that is out of line with returns to workers and shareholders, said in a recent speech that "what really gets to the public is when CEOs get rich...
Make no mistake: the reform of which Ross speaks means employees will be working harder for fewer benefits. Bethlehem Steel, along with Acme Steel and LTV before it, off-loaded a total of $8 billion in pension obligations to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation before Ross acquired it. He then wiped out health-care benefits that had been promised to retirees. For current workers, he installed co-pays and coverage limits where there were none before and replaced the union's defined-benefit pension plan with a less secure defined-contribution plan...
...turnaround." DT isn't the only telecom dialing up good numbers: a string of other phone companies have reported positive results, including British Telecom, which last week posted a 40% gain in quarterly profits. But phone companies aren't off the hook. BT's €8.1 billion pension hole dwarfs its income. And better profits owe more to cost cutting and asset sales than to underlying performance - €1.7 billion of BT's €4.2 billion income was from the sale of its stake in France's Cegetel. Long-term debt also remains staggering. DT, which has a stock valuation...