Lenovo CEO Gives His $3M Bonus To 10k Workers

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Lenovo CEO Gives His $3M Bonus To 10k Workers

Posted by Soulskill on Friday July 20, 2012 @08:09AM from the what's-the-opposite-of-a-golden-parachute dept.

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."

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Bloody communists! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:12 · Score: 5, Funny

Capitalism FTW! Boycott Lenovo.
1. Re:Bloody communists! by spidercoz · 2012-07-20 08:17 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Yeah, how dare they make our decent, god-fearing capitalist CEOs look like money-grubbing scum.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
2. Re:Bloody communists! by DinDaddy · 2012-07-20 08:19 · 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.
3. Re:Bloody communists! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:25 · 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.
4. Re:Bloody communists! by randizzle3000 · 2012-07-20 08:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I think that's so they can skip paying income tax, not because of generosity.
5. Re:Bloody communists! by SScorpio · 2012-07-20 08:27 · 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.
6. Re:Bloody communists! by Nadaka · 2012-07-20 08:40 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  They have a $1 salary because salary is taxed at the higher rate reserved for the lower class. The CEO's get all their compensation in the form of stock options, and that is taxed at the lower rate reserved for the gentry and with a good enough accountant and a multinational organization capable of shifting money about, it may not be taxed at all.
7. Re:Bloody communists! by spidercoz · 2012-07-20 08:55 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  only because charitable donations are tax-deductible
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
An even more generous example by G3ckoG33k · 2012-07-20 08:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

http://www.thelocal.se/41536/20120619/
Family-run firm Nominit in Värnamo, southern Sweden, will be paying out 114 million kronor ($16.3 million) to their current and former employees in a gesture of goodwill. The company was founded in 1937 and is the two founders and owners have no heirs to their fortune. The company, which currently has about 50 employees, manufactures rivets and has a turnover of about 100 million kronor, of which 60 comes from export.
$16,000,000 to 50 workers.
Holy Crap! by NeutronCowboy · 2012-07-20 08:19 · 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?"

--
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
1. Re:Holy Crap! by NeutronCowboy · 2012-07-20 08:34 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I agree that context is important when considering the impact. However, I have to say that if my manager or my CEO distributed their bonus out to all the people underneath them, my respect for them would go up tremendously - even if it would amount to only an extra beer at pub night for me. The important part is that they were willing to forego something that their contract said they were entitled to, and instead chose it to say thank you to their employees in a very direct manner.
  
  --
  Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Something similar where I grew up... by The+Good+Reverend · 2012-07-20 08:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

Kingston technology (memory manufacturer) split $100 million between 500+ employees. They also gave scholarships to all the local schools (mine included) - http://articles.latimes.com/1996-12-15/news/mn-9424_1_million-bonus-employee
And the bad news is... by stanlyb · 2012-07-20 08:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

I am on crossroad, from one hand we have:
1.CEO receiving $3mln bonus, not salary but bonus. On another hand we have:
2.Regular Joe's medium monthly salary of "$300"....
---------------
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:I would high-five this guy. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:30 · 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?
In theory... it *is* a bit like *communism* by F69631 · 2012-07-20 08:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

Many Americans don't seem to know (or perhaps care about) distinctions between communism (the form of utopia which countries like the Soviet Union supposedly wanted to achieve) and socialism (the system they intended to use in the transitional phase). Oversimplifying a bit... Communism is supposed to be a state where there is such an abundance of resources that everyone can get whatever they need and the motive to work would come not from material goods but from the social status that good workers receive, the idealistic desire to work for the good of mankind and stuff like that. Socialism is the idea that when a government takes control of the means of production and puts them to good use, the results are in some way (be it productivity, philosphical differences or whatever) better than than what capitalistic society can achieve... and if the difference in productivity is great enough, it could some day result in the overabundance of resources needed for communism.
So... When a CEO decides that he wants to give away huge sums of money (for social status and/or idealistic reasons... in a situation where he must have overabundance of resources for himself, because he is able to give away millions) and that the best receiver for the money are the workers that have produced the said wealth, I think that one could argue that it's - in small scale - very similar to how communist utopia was supposed to work.
Naturally this is all just a mixture of being pedantic and some form of thought experiments... but then again, what could you expect in a thread like this.
No, actually it means by publiclurker · 2012-07-20 09:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

that the CEO has to do something to cause a quick spike in the stock price when he wants to cash in. Generally, this is done by firing a bunch of people. It doesn't matter if this tanks the company, as the CEO's already gotten his cash.
Re:Damned if you do.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 10:20 · Score: 5, Funny

In Capitalist US, false dichotomy flogs you!