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Would You Work Your Job for Free?
This is exactly what airline giant British Airways is asking of it employees.
BA, the largest airline in the United Kingdom,
posted annual operating losses of $362 million in May and is now
looking to cut costs by having employees voluntarily work for a week or
up to a month without compensation. CEO Willie Walsh and some of the
executive team have already pledged to give up their paychecks for the
month of July and want everyone else to get in the spirit of things.
“Many of you from across the airline are stepping up to help the
company,” Walsh wrote in the employee magazine. “I am looking for every
single part of the company to take part in some way in this
cash-effective way of helping the company’s survival plan. It really
counts.”
Well, that sounds all fine and dandy until you consider that Walsh’s
annual salary is a whopping $1,210,222.53 a year!! That breaks down to
roughly $23,274 a week, but the average Brit makes just $775 a week.
Imagine that, Walsh is giving up 93 stacks (no small change), but he
can absorb that! He can tighten his hand-tooled leather belt for a
month, but the employees he’s imposing on with this request barely have
pants!
What would you do if your employer asked you to
make that type of sacrifice? In these brutal economic times when you
are among the lucky just for having a job, do you bite the bullet or do
you bounce and take your chances elsewhere?
Hard to imagine? Well, the way things are going, more and more people might be called upon to make this tough choice one day. –sly
