Setting a Good Example
"The firm will pay no bonuses to directors, and expects exec and director pay to fall some 20 per cent to 50 per cent until March 2011."
Jeez. If only a few other industries (hello, banking? I'm looking at you!) would follow suit on this part.
Being laid off (been there twice, currently looking at #3 inside the next 6-12) is never fun, but even less so when a single director - usually being one of the people who got things wrong which has led to you being out of work - gets a yearly bonus worth more than you could hope to make in your working life*.
*Peter Cummings, HBOS Chief Exec Corporate Division**: 2007, Basic pay = £630,000, plus a further £1,976,000 bonus - giving a total package (£2.606M) enough to pay for 170 branch staff (earning £12-15k at present), with leftovers for cake.
At £30k pa, it would take you nearly 87 years to make what he did in one - and all he did was break everything.
** not that I have a particular dislike for either Mr Cummins or HBOS, his was simply the first set of details I found - and seeing as HBOS has fallen to pieces, it seemed more appropriate that looking for Barclays.