By Mary Clare McGraw
Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest military contractor, has released in an SEC filing, that as of January 1, 2010, it will no longer pay its executives’ annual fees for social clubs and country clubs. The firm has decided it will no longer pay for cars and drivers if they are used for personal reasons. Lockheed Martin will not provide tickets to sporting events and concerts, or financial advice and tax preparation for its top executives. These cutbacks do not come without monetary compensation for employees in the form of an extra $25,000-40,000 here and there.
This announcement to limit the future year’s benefits is a smart way to have the media focus on what Lockheed Martin is NOT giving out in the form of bonuses in the future as opposed to how the firm is compensating its top executives this year. Goldman Sachs, on the other hand, has been in the hot seat for paying its employees an outstanding $16.5 billion in compensation, which averages to approximately $623,418 for each and every employee.
While the uproar concerning executive compensation has been aflame for a second year now, Wall Street is attempting to help salvage this public relations nightmare with announcements that firms such as Morgan Stanley and Bank of America will not be holding in-house holiday parties this year. In a further attempt to salvage their public images they are insisting that they are planning on donating the money that would have been allocated for a party to a “yet-to-be-determined” charity. Let’s see if Wall Street can put its money where its mouth is.
Source 1, Source 2, Source 3
It might be a nice gesture of the different banks to not have a holiday party and instead to donate the money to a charity. But personally I don't believe this will help their public image. I think to have holiday parties are good to have as a company and this is not what the public doesn't like to see. It is much more the big compensations for the bankers that upset people and that in my opinion should be cut when a firm is in financial trouble.
ReplyDelete- Stefanie Marty