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In My Opinion: Lifestyles of the Rich and Clueless
The telecommunications industry is sick. Its conditions are curable, but our employers are making it very difficult for CWA to lend a helping hand.Virtually all the major companies have announced job cuts of a magnitude that simply isn’t justified by real economic need, and which will hurt them in the long term.
And top telecom executives continue to reward themselves with salaries and perks that are simply outlandish at a time when the country is appalled by the abuse and arrogance of so many corporate leaders.
Let’s take a look at Verizon. As the company was announcing another round of job cuts recently, we learned that retired Chairman Chuck Lee had cut a deal to pay him $6 million in consulting fees — on top of his huge pension and all the money he made from selling GTE to Verizon.
All told, Lee made over $60 million in pay, bonuses and stock options from 1997 to 2001, and the current Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg collected $56 million in the same period. The real option king was Verizon Vice Chairman Lawrence Babbio who took in $78 million.
Much of this income was from special bonuses for the mergers of Nynex with Bell Atlantic, and then GTE with Verizon. In other words, these men got fabulously rich just by doing deals during the merger-mad 1990s.
Now, while Verizon attempts to slash thousands of jobs, we hear that Babbio gave himself another big payday last month by cashing in 50,000 option shares when the stock hit its year’s high of $40.
Verizon isn’t alone in the executive jackpot category. At SBC, which wants to cut 11,000 jobs, CEO Ed Whitacre made a handsome $137 million in total compensation from 1997 to 2001. BellSouth’s CEO Duane Ackerman might seem a piker, earning only $26 million in that period, but don’t feel too sorry for him — he has another $27 million in outstanding options.
For these multi-millionaires to try to bolster the bottom line by cutting our members’ jobs shows not only an incredible degree of insensitivity but also contempt for their customers. We have an internal Verizon document that admits that planned cutbacks will further hamper service. Already, the facts show that a 15 percent job decline in New York over the past year has caused Verizon service outages to double and the number of out-of-service lines not fixed within 24 hours to rise by 32 percent in New York City and by 179 percent upstate.
One of the grossest examples of management insensitivity came from Lucent, a company that truly is in dire straits. Even as we were in talks last month to find ways to help the company curb rising health costs, Lucent announced across-the-board retention bonuses for its management team. Apparently, our members are supposed to be loyal enough to take a hit to help Lucent survive while the executives need to be bribed just to stay and do their jobs.
These company officials often call me to express shock when they hear that our locals are demonstrating against job cuts. Somehow, in their rarified world of private jets and gated mansion communities, they just don’t get it.
They complain about growing competition — sometimes making good points about regulatory handicaps — but they don’t seem to realize that cutting capital investment and the skilled, front-line workforce means worse service, which drives customers to their competitors.
And all of them, including General Electric, are complaining about the cost of health care and prescription drugs. But none of them, I point out, is doing a thing to support the Senate bill to address drug costs for retirees — and for themselves. Nor did any of them join us a few years ago in pushing for a national health insurance program that also would have saved them huge sums.
Yes, these are hard times for the economy and for the industries where our members work. Our union is working to help our employers become more competitive, such as in fighting for needed regulatory changes. In dire cases, such as the bankrupt US Airways, we’re even willing to discuss temporary concessions.
But let me make this clear: CWA will not let our members be sacrificed while corporate barons shelter themselves from pain and try to prop up short-term share prices at the expense of workers, customers and the long-term health and success of the business.
And top telecom executives continue to reward themselves with salaries and perks that are simply outlandish at a time when the country is appalled by the abuse and arrogance of so many corporate leaders.
Let’s take a look at Verizon. As the company was announcing another round of job cuts recently, we learned that retired Chairman Chuck Lee had cut a deal to pay him $6 million in consulting fees — on top of his huge pension and all the money he made from selling GTE to Verizon.
All told, Lee made over $60 million in pay, bonuses and stock options from 1997 to 2001, and the current Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg collected $56 million in the same period. The real option king was Verizon Vice Chairman Lawrence Babbio who took in $78 million.
Much of this income was from special bonuses for the mergers of Nynex with Bell Atlantic, and then GTE with Verizon. In other words, these men got fabulously rich just by doing deals during the merger-mad 1990s.
Now, while Verizon attempts to slash thousands of jobs, we hear that Babbio gave himself another big payday last month by cashing in 50,000 option shares when the stock hit its year’s high of $40.
Verizon isn’t alone in the executive jackpot category. At SBC, which wants to cut 11,000 jobs, CEO Ed Whitacre made a handsome $137 million in total compensation from 1997 to 2001. BellSouth’s CEO Duane Ackerman might seem a piker, earning only $26 million in that period, but don’t feel too sorry for him — he has another $27 million in outstanding options.
For these multi-millionaires to try to bolster the bottom line by cutting our members’ jobs shows not only an incredible degree of insensitivity but also contempt for their customers. We have an internal Verizon document that admits that planned cutbacks will further hamper service. Already, the facts show that a 15 percent job decline in New York over the past year has caused Verizon service outages to double and the number of out-of-service lines not fixed within 24 hours to rise by 32 percent in New York City and by 179 percent upstate.
One of the grossest examples of management insensitivity came from Lucent, a company that truly is in dire straits. Even as we were in talks last month to find ways to help the company curb rising health costs, Lucent announced across-the-board retention bonuses for its management team. Apparently, our members are supposed to be loyal enough to take a hit to help Lucent survive while the executives need to be bribed just to stay and do their jobs.
These company officials often call me to express shock when they hear that our locals are demonstrating against job cuts. Somehow, in their rarified world of private jets and gated mansion communities, they just don’t get it.
They complain about growing competition — sometimes making good points about regulatory handicaps — but they don’t seem to realize that cutting capital investment and the skilled, front-line workforce means worse service, which drives customers to their competitors.
And all of them, including General Electric, are complaining about the cost of health care and prescription drugs. But none of them, I point out, is doing a thing to support the Senate bill to address drug costs for retirees — and for themselves. Nor did any of them join us a few years ago in pushing for a national health insurance program that also would have saved them huge sums.
Yes, these are hard times for the economy and for the industries where our members work. Our union is working to help our employers become more competitive, such as in fighting for needed regulatory changes. In dire cases, such as the bankrupt US Airways, we’re even willing to discuss temporary concessions.
But let me make this clear: CWA will not let our members be sacrificed while corporate barons shelter themselves from pain and try to prop up short-term share prices at the expense of workers, customers and the long-term health and success of the business.