Lenovo CEO Gives His $3M Bonus To 10k Workers 267
ndogg writes "Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing has decided to give his $3,000,000USD bonus to his workers instead of keeping it. Those 10,000 employees include receptionists, production line workers, and assistants. That works out to about 2,000 yuan or $300 per employee, which is about a month's worth of salary."
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:5, Insightful)
JAL CEO did something similar and took a paycut as well. Cold day in hell before any american CEO would do this. Even if one were willing, the others would kill him in the country club locker room and bury his body on the links.
Holy Crap! (Score:5, Insightful)
That guy just earned himself some serious loyalty from the peons. Nothing says "I couldn't have done this without you" like sending a serious bonus down to everybody. The execs won't care, as that won't cover a day of their salary, but the people at the bottom of the ladder will appreciate it. Interesting that that came from a Chinese owner. I'd be curious to see what American CEOs think of that, and what their response would be to the question "Would you ever give you entire yearly bonus to your employees, and why?"
And the bad news is... (Score:5, Insightful)
1.CEO receiving $3mln bonus, not salary but bonus. On another hand we have:
2.Regular Joe's medium monthly salary of "$300"....
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So i wonder which one is worst, a company with so low medium salary, or a company with so much big CEO salary....
PLEASE, help me decide...
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:5, Insightful)
except their fringe benefits and perks might amount to six figures, and stock options give them a net in the millions most of the time. It might be a nice show of generosity, but it's also a nice way to have some PR and tax breaks for the uber rich.
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's so they can skip paying income tax, not because of generosity.
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:5, Insightful)
While they have a $1/yr salary. They still have stock options and other benefits that make up the difference. This is a tax dodge and not a show of generosity.
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:4, Insightful)
As I recall, there's a lot of American CEOs with a $1/yr salary. I think Lee Iacocca may have started that trend when he went to work for Chrysler (or at least he popularized it). Granted, these guys are already filthy rich and can live off their assets/investments alone but it's still a nice show of generosity.
I thought this had more to do with tax evasion? Get paid through capital gains rather than salary and pay less taxes.
Re:I would high-five this guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, this guy sounds like a pretty good guy. Except, of course, that his bonus is equal to what about 10,000 employees make in a month. Doesn't really make his company seem that great. I'm not saying it's not common, but it a good example of how messed up the system is. Do you really think that guy benefited the company, over what he was already making in a year, more than what 833 people do in a whole year?
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism does not preclude altruism. Charity work has always flourished in capitalistic societies.
Re:I would high-five this guy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I would high-five this guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:5, Insightful)
$1/yr salary is simply a tax evasion scheme since wages are taxed much higher than the stock options etc. that they receive instead. These tax dodging assholes that won't pay for police, road maintenance or any thing else that is tax funded, even portrait this scheme as something modest. They make me puke.
Re:Bloody communists! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A good example (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly right and it all started when Reagan dropped the top marginal tax rate from 74% (I think) to 28%. High marginal tax rates encourage high earners to put the money back into the business including pay raises. Higher pay for people with normal incomes means more money to be spent in the consumer economy.
Not a tax break. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the absense of triggering some government program that gives more tax reduction than the money given away, it is still a loss. He might not pay taxes on the money he doesn't get (because he had it paid to the workers instead). But that normally will be taxed at less than 100%. So he's still out-of-pocket.
IMHO what this says is that the CEO thinks that the compensation packages the company had set up ended up giving him too much, and the workers too little, for the long-term health of the company. So he fixes it by reorganizing it - and gets a boost in morale and some good press as a bonus.
He probably also ends up ahead long-term because the company does far better in the future than it would have without this action. But he also might be doing it because he really is an idealist and/or does care for his workers.
Either way (if he's not a compensated psychopath who doesn't feel anything much) he gets to feel very good in his eventual retirement.