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Labor & Worker Rights Sun Aug 09 2009
More Tribune Hijinks
In case you haven't heard, the Tribune Company plans to pay out almost $70 million in bonuses to top staff this year, despite the company's financial problems. The figure being tossed around is about 700 staffers, which amounts to almost $100,000 a person, if distributed evenly. Also noted is that 9 of the 10 top suits (excluding Sam Zell) will be paid out $3.1 million of the total sum.
The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild rightly criticized the Tribune for calling the bonuses "performance" money. It's gotten to a point with our country where it isn't even news anymore when a business that is losing money like crazy - GM, Citibank, AIG - still rewards their executives with millions of dollars in cash and unthinkable luxury treatment. Their message is clear: this is class war, and we're winning.
And yet, what do we see from the working class? Steaming resentment? Mass strikes? Boycotts? Sadly, all we seem to see are Palin supporters, O'Reilly followers, and dittoheads. Seduced by birthers, teabaggers, and swift-boaters, many of us in this country seem to have forgotten our roots. We need to start waking up and realize that maybe Barack Obama's abandonment of single-payer health care (from the get-go), his cowardly treatment of Wall Street's robber-barons, and his lackluster support for the now-toothless Employee Free Choice Act is not called compromise - it's called losing the battle.
