Editor’s Note: This column is a reprint from 2021.
There was an article in the Buffalo News this week that almost made me mad at the audacity and arrogance of rich folks. The same Tops executives that filed for bankruptcy asked the judge to award them multi-million-dollar bonuses as part of the bankruptcy settlement. When I first saw the article, I had to read it twice because I couldn’t believe my eyes. The very guys that didn’t do their job of saving the company in the first place wants millions of dollars in bonuses because… well I’m not sure why. Is that how business works? The same guys, who had no answers before, will suddenly be able to turn the business around and generate new profits. Really?
I further learned that the Tops Employee Pension Fund has not been sufficiently paid into for many years: so, union members are being asked to take reduced pension payouts. That must really bite to work all those years and get shortchanged in the end because of the incompetents of a few millionaires that run the company. Yet the same guys that short changed and screwed over their employees want a special bonus check.
Check these figures and wonder where we went wrong:
Chairman & CEO: $1.3 million in annual salary, plus a $162,822 bonus.
President & COO: $1.05 million in annual salary, plus a $130,688 bonus.
Executive Vice President, Human Resources: $424,474 in annual salary, plus a $53,059 bonus.
Executive Vice President & CFO: $420,000 in annual salary, plus a $52,500 bonus.
Executive Vice President, Operations: $420,000 in annual salary, plus a $52,500 bonus.
Imagine making 1.3 million dollars a year and what that paycheck must look like. That’s a 50 thousand dollar check every two weeks. That is more than the average U.S citizen makes in a year and twice as much as a Tops minimum wage employee. Judging from the names of those executives I would bet my bonus card none of them are men of color.
I would feel a little better about it if one of those executives were someone of color, especially considering Tops has made billions of dollars on black people who are the bane of their very existence. And without the patronage of poor Black people, they are surly doomed in the very near future. But for the millionaire guys that drove them to bankruptcy their future looks bright.