Bonuses and Class Envy
I live in North Dakota and I am employed by one of the largest financial corporations in the world. Our world headquarters is in Europe. I won’t mention the company name or the country. They are really irrelevant anyway.
I am not an executive. I make no financial decisions. I currently do not manage any people. I am an individual contributor.
Our compay utilizes a “variable compensation plan”. This means that employees are given a base salary. They are also enrolled in an Incentive Compensation Plan. This means that at the beginning of the year, each employee works with their manager to set objectives, both personal and organizational. Then, at the end of the year, the employee undergoes a review to determine whether he met his objectives and is given a performance rating ranging from Needs Improvement to Exceeds Expectations. If the employee meets or exceeds his objectives, he is eligible for a bonus. The amount of that bonus is dependent on the annual financial results of the company. If the company meets or exceeds its objectives, the bonuses are generous, but not exorbitant. Remember, this occurs at ALL levels of the compay from CEO to entry level.
Late in 2008, our company announced that due to the poor economy, we would undergo severe cost reductions at all levels of the company. We divested some business holdings that did not fit into our core business model. Our “C” Executives agreed to forego any bonuses, and they severely reduced the bonus pool for all employees.
Keep in mind that this all occured long before the AIG bonus scandal erupted. Keep in mind that our company received NO US Federal Bailout monies.
This month, those of us who qualified by meeting our objectives were paid a bonus. It was severely limited, and for many of us, it amounted to less than a full month of base pay. Definitely not exorbitant!!
Today however, we were told that after much negative publicity in the European press, our Chairman in Europe has agreed to ask the top 200 highest paid employees and their immediate employees to “voluntarily” refund their bonus. Combined, that is about 1200 employees. In addition, he announced that if the amount refunded does not meet the treshold he has set, that he may ask ALL EMPLOYEES to refund their bonus.
To make a long story short, I am now a victim of class envy. I’m not a millionaire executive. I’m not a financial decision maker. Between my wife and I, we make less than 100k per year, far less.
And this, my friends, is how it starts. That long slide into outright socialism. Use envy to pit one class against another. Slowly, the target of envy moves a little lower. And lower. Until eventually it is neighbor pitted against neighbor. Each one making sure that there is “equity” and “fairness”. Key words that really mean nobody should be rewarded for excellence. The death of initiative. The death of freedom. The death of democracy.
