Northwest gives CEO $26.6M stock deal

Source: Pioneer Press

A $26.6 million post-bankruptcy stock package awarded to Northwest Airlines' CEO Doug Steenland isn't sitting well with workers who took steep pay cuts last year.

Northwest late Friday revealed details of a plan to give its top five executives stock in the newly reorganized company when it emerges from bankruptcy next month. In addition to Steenland, Northwest will award an estimated $10 million to $13.5 million in stock grants to its executive vice presidents - Neal Cohen, J. Timothy Griffin, Philip Haan and Andy Roberts - but individual amounts have not been determined yet.

The news came at a time when "pay" has become a dirty word at Northwest.

Last year, the Eagan-based airline won $1.4 billion in annual labor-cost cuts from employees, amounting to what the unions say has been up to 40 percent cuts in wage, benefit and work rule changes over the next five years. Workers are due to receive about $1.6 billion through 2010 from the carrier in claims, profit sharing and incentive awards.

Union leaders slammed the stock awards Friday. "Our employees have taken huge pay cuts, have lost most of their pensions, they're going through divorces and personal bankruptcy. This is a huge upheaval for all these families that work for Northwest," said Wade Blaufuss, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association at Northwest. "Now it's perfectly clear that this crew of robber barons used the bankruptcy process to extort money from its own employees to enrich themselves to obscene proportions."



Read more: http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_5821384

What bloody nerve. This should be a jailable felony.

Payouts from CEOs in the 10-50 million dollar range due to business failures should change the nature of these predatory bankruptcies and golden parachute bailouts quite nicely.

for five years.

Any other surpluses should go to the frontline employees--the people who really determine the quality of the customer's experience.