The National Union of Journalists is calling for Trinity Mirror shareholders to block proposals for a new remuneration package for the company’s chief executive.
They union says that Sly Bailey’s bonus should be used to save journalists’ jobs and are hoping that the changes will be approved at the annual general meeting on 10 May.
It claims Trinity Mirror’s remuneration board has proposed that Ms Bailey’s maximum potential annual cash bonus be cut from £825,000, 110pc of her base salary of £750,000,to 55pc.
That is a cut of £412,500 and reduces her maximum cash bonus to the same sum. The board also recommended that she be eligible for a higher long-term bonus from her present 80pc of salary to 144pc.
The NUJ says figures from the company’s annual report show that Ms Bailey earned a base salary of £750,000 and a short-term cash bonus worth a further 30pc of salary, with her pension contributions totalling another £248,000. She also received 503,000 shares worth an extra £396,000 which vest in 2014, and could earn a further 762,000 shares by 2014.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: “The NUJ has long been calling for the newspaper group to invest in its staff and quality journalism, not lining the pockets of management. This is not the politics of envy; this is saying that if Trinity Mirror is to succeed and survive, then it needs to be spending the money on its staff and titles.”
Trinity Mirror did not wish to comment.
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So, in 2011, profits decimated, sales well down and loads of people made redundant. Yet Sly walks off with a performance bonus of £248,000…..equivalent to the salaries of about 10 regional press journalist salaries. Will somebody please explain what she did to justify this. How bad would the performance have to have been for her not to walk off with an extra quarter of a million quid. It is disgraceful.
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It does seem odd that she should be rewarded so. I fear the NUJ’s call be as ineffectual as ever.
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“Judge me by the share price” she said when profits fell soon after she took over at the helm. My shares, bought via a sharesave arrangement have now soared to about 6% of what I paid for them. As ever, I shall vote accordingly. However, I and others of a like mind are comfortably outvoted by those who have a versted interest in keeping bonuses high – i.e. those who have been given huge slabs of shares for overseeing the company’s demise.
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There’s something horribly fascinating about this… it reminds me of when people used to say “I can’t stand Thatcher, but you have to admire her for the way…”
Meanwhile, heads roll in the regions, the remaining ‘management’ move round in their fewer rickety chairs and issue PR announcements sprinkled with toxic fairy dust about ‘going forward’ to their multimedia destiny.
And if some of her regional journalists actually worked out the hours they do for subsistence level pay they’d realise they are scraping the Basic Minimum Wage.
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Don’t worry – TM have yet to escape the hatchet re the old hacking feeding frenzy – lol!!!!!!!
Lets see what happens to the “senior management” then!
Off into the sunset with a bloody great golden handshake.
Nowt changes except the names.
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