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AOL Reverses Course On 401K Match; CEO Apologizes

An anonymous reader writes "When we last checked in with Tim Armstrong, the AOL CEO was demonstrating 'Leadership with a Capital L' to employees of the company's Patch local news subsidiary by summarily firing an employee in the middle of a conference call for taking photos. Armstrong continued to serve up tasty material for tech bloggers this past week, blaming $7.1 million in extra expenses from Obamacare, and for $2 million in expenses for 'two AOLers that had distressed babies', for a decision to hold all matching funds for employee 401K programs until the end of each calendar year. After a small firestorm in the press, and a petition from AOL employees unhappy with both the policy change and the way it was presented, Armstrong reversed course, reinstating the per-period match and apologizing for mentioning the individual employee cases (TechCrunch is an AOL subsidiary). Incidentally, Armstrong was originally following in the footsteps of IBM, which made similar changes to its 401K program that went into effect last year."

3 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Distressed Babies? by NapalmV · · Score: 4, Insightful

    CEO pay is also an outlier, what's his plan about it?

  2. Re:Lemme guess... by ebno-10db · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Eat the rich!

    They probably taste lousy. I'd settle for the oppressive treatment they received in the radical days of the Eisenhower administration.

    I wish people had a better understanding of history. Calling for a return to the tax structure (up to 90% on the wealthy's incomes), the percentage going to employee compensation, etc., that we had in the 1950's probably would get me branded a "socialist" (by people who don't even understand what the word means). Yet that's what we had in those idyllic Ozzie and Harriet days that so many, including the right wing, see as a lost golden era.

  3. Re:Distressed Babies? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Interesting, he raises his own pay by 10 million dollars and then blames Obamacare for 7 million dollar increase in "costs". Even if what this inveterate liar is saying is true, it works out to less than 2 bucks a day per employee.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact