Anger as train firm boss awarded £1m share bonus amid strikes and railway chaos

40 comments
  1. Ah, still making profit but won’t compensate the people that keep it all together fairly… Smells like capitalism to me.

  2. It’s morally obscene to be taking large bonuses while the workers running the enterprise are being told to tighten their belts..

  3. Used to work with a lady that was an amateur singer. We worked in a deadend minimum wage job. But she lived in a £5m recording studio in the Barbican.

    Because the boss/owner of Chiltern railways had to lose £5m or pay taxes on it. He invested in a recording studio that he let his boyfriend and some of his friends live in. This is back in 2012.

    So you can imagine if that sort of stuff is going on every year how insanely wealthy they are but there just isn’t enough to pay the staff that made that money a decent wage.

    Years ago I used to really criticize rail workers striking (bob crow ere). Obviously i was young and naive. This wealth gap seriously needs to be brought down and if it means everybody has to suffer a little so be it.

    Well done Felixstowe port for walking out. Southampton soon to follow.

  4. Sorry we can’t afford to increase wages……… Because we need to pay ourselves chuffing great bonuses.

  5. These CEO’s aren’t being paid to run the company well. They are being paid to make the shareholders truck loads of money.

    They don’t give a shit about the service/infrastructure/employees/customers as long as the bottom line is healthy.

  6. This “rules for thee but not for me” attitude in the corporate world is why people are so angry with the government and with the private train operators.

    Despite the death throes of the Daily Wail and other hate-filled papers trying to demonise them for striking, I think public opinion is siding with the unions and Mick Lynch.

    Gross insubordination, underperformance or other issues that would cause reputational damage to a brand would get a regular worker sacked. Executive level management meanwhile are giving themselves hefty bonuses for a poor job done. There is a point in the corporate ladder where employees neither take responsibility nor are held responsible for a bad situation.

    > Andy Burnham said: “If these bosses had any decency they would read the room and hand these bonuses back.”

    “Read the room” isn’t the right analogy here. These executives are likely so out-of-touch with the average person that their nepotistic work culture is giving them the positive reinforcement needed to strangle the working class even more.

  7. Workers asked to accept a decrease in living standard while the people at the top are raking in cash at record levels. This is Tory Britain. This is Brexit Britain. And millions of British people voted for if. Shame on them.

  8. Privatisation has been an abject failure. We need a leader, I mean a real one. Currently there is no-one strong enough in their values to say this is wrong and needs to be reversed. Just weak minded individuals seeking our vote for more of the same.

  9. He was given 970,000 shares in the company that he can’t cash for over 5 years, as part of a long term system that’s been in place for years.

    Just thought I’d write what actually happened seeing as the headline is misleading and no one reads the articles they just react.

  10. I mean, we’re taking a lot of things up the arse. Why not this too? This is just taking the mick now lol

  11. And they wonder why they’re striking. That’s just a piss take – nobody up top thought ‘hm, probably not the best time to be giving out bonuses this year’.

  12. That’s pretty fuckin egregious given the context.

    Government need to step in to prevent more strikes.

    I would absolutely strike even more.

  13. Utter piss take.

    I’m a commuter and strikes affect me greatly but I support them whole heartedly and this just gives them more reason to strike.

  14. Few weeks down the line change “Train” to Royal Mail. More dividends and bonuses on the way for those at the top of that company

  15. Windfall tax the hell out of them and then nationalise. There openly spitting on people at this point.

  16. Unrelated, but I’m an American watching some coverage. Can’t remember his name, but that bald representative of the workers is incredible on TV.

  17. What a waste of £1M.

    Meanwhile we have ASDA Cafes giving kids meals for £1 because the government can’t be assed to do so.

    What a world we live in, posh privileged pricks ruining everything once again for literally everyone else because uh-oh their millions of pounds is not enough.

  18. All CEO “bonuses” are fake tax avoidance schemes, no amount of fuck up will ever see them lose a “bonus”. Frequently a company bankruptcy will have the curator approving the CEO having their “bonus” paid.

    See us regular plebs have conflated the meaning of bonus for a regular person (you bust your ass all year to be paid an amount probably not proportional to the extra effort you put in but you’ve mentally classed it as “unexpected” so a bonus) with the “bonus” for a CEO.

    But CEO “bonuses” are a construct set up by a company’s board to make their overpaid CEO stay and not hop to another overpaid position and serve as a tax dodge for the CEO. Because while us regular fools get the hard tax bracket for our earned bonus the CEO “bonus” is almost always in the form of a financial instrument tied to the company which can be turned into cash with one extra step but obviously at a much lower tax rate.

  19. Why are we such subservient pussies? The French wouldn’t put up with this. There is going to be a revolution.

  20. Next up: ceo’s of energy firms everywhere get huge bonuses amid surging energy costs. Coldest winter in decades and over half small to medium businesses file for bankruptcy due to operating costs increasing by four times!

  21. Remember boys, the problem is the lazy drivers and guards that are overpaid, not needed and constantly moaning like someone was saying in another post.

  22. I know there is back and forth with this bonus stuff.

    But £1m is too much. Just imagine it was maxed at £125,000. Then the rest goes to the staff.

    £775,000 between 1,000 staff = £775 – pretty much what the staff are asking for.

    Whoosh….

  23. 1m for the boss but people are moaning about rmt striking for fair pay. People have their big stupid heads in the sand.

    Well actually rmt has far more support than the media would have you believe.

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