BOMBARDIER BACKS DOWN
Protesters rally outside Bombardier’s headquarters on René Lévesque Blvd. yesterday to express their outrage about executive pay increases. Last night, the company said more than half of the hefty compensation will be deferred until 2020.
Bombardier further retreated Sunday on a hefty pay increase to six senior executives, announcing they would defer receiving payment on a sizable chunk until a later time.
A statement from company president and CEO Alain Bellemare late Sunday said he has asked the transportation giant’s board of directors to defer more than half of the US$32.6 million the executives received in compensation in 2016 until 2020.
“This compensation will only be payable if we achieve our performance objectives; delivering value to all our shareholders, including the people of Quebec and Canada,” Bellemare said in a brief statement.
Bombardier has faced a firestorm of criticism since it emerged last week that Bellemare, company chairman Pierre Beaudoin and four senior executives were given US$32.6 million in 2016, up from US$21.9 million the year before.
Two Quebec cabinet ministers and the Parti Québécois opposition cried foul in light of the fact Bombardier received a US$1-billion investment from the Quebec government in exchange for a 49.5-per-cent stake last year.
In February, the federal government pledged $372.5 million in repayable loans to the company.
On Friday, Beaudoin asked the board of directors to bring his 2016 compensation in line with its 2015 levels.
Through his Twitter account, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard stated Sunday evening that he was satisfied with the announcement by Bombardier, saying it was important for the workers and the population of Quebec.
PQ Leader Jean-Francois Lisée tweeted late Sunday that Bombardier’s latest effort at damage control wasn’t good enough.
“The Parti Québécois, like 93 per cent of Quebecers, refuse a ‘deferral’ of scandalous raises. We demand a cancellation!” Lisée tweeted.
On Sunday morning, the outrage in the air was palpable as more than 1,000 people — many of them parents with young children on their shoulders — demonstrated in front of Bombardier’s Montreal headquarters.
Chanting “Boo-boo-bardier!” the protesters also vented their anger at Premier Couillard for having negotiated the bailout without imposing a ceiling on the raises and bonuses that Bombardier’s executives could award themselves.
“I work in a school and we’re constantly told that there’s not enough money for our students,” said Jessica Lacombe, a 32-year-old Montreal elementary school teacher. “Yet six executives from Bombardier are able to collect more than $32 million U.S. in compensation — money which I believe comes from the taxpayer.”
“This is absolutely scandalous,” said Lacombe’s mother, Hannah Obermeir. “I’m angry and I’m disgusted.”
Company chairman Pierre Beaudoin’s announcement on Friday that he would give up his raise did not seem to mollify the protesters, many of whom clanged pots and carried signs with slogans like “Shame on Bombardier!” and “Steal from the poor to give to the rich.”
Compensation for Beaudoin and five other executives jumped to US$32.6 million in 2016, up from $21.9 million the year before.
“It’s almost at the level of corruption,” said Paul Bourdon, a 54-year-old Laval resident who earns $30.80 an hour repairing the suburb’s water mains.
His last raise, 1.5 per cent, was below Canada’s most recent reported inflation rate of two per cent.
“I came down this morning by myself,” Bourdon added. “I wanted to be with the people over here to denounce the raises that the bosses got, nearly a 50-per-cent increase in their salary. I have difficulty having 1.5. So right there, it’s way too much.”
Jean C. Monty, the head of Bombardier’s human resources and compensation committee, issued an open letter on Saturday arguing that it’s “inappropriate and misleading” to compare the compensation of Beaudoin and the other executives year-over-year, because they “assumed new positions at various times between February and December 2015.
“This means the 2015 compensation numbers were for a partial year of employment, while the 2016 numbers reflect a full year’s compensation,” Monty explained.
But a number of politicians who addressed the protesters didn’t buy that argument, including Sainte-Marie—Saint-Jacques MNA Manon Massé, interim spokesperson for Québec solidaire.
“Who do you take us for?” Massé asked the cheering protesters.
“This is a government that reinvested less in health and education than it cut back, while giving $1.4 billion to Bombardier. The government said they ‘saved’ the company, but public funds are used to give raises to its executives.”
A poll published on the weekend found that 93 per cent of Quebecers are against those raises.
“This is the highest rate of disagreement ever measured in our (fast-track) surveys,” pollster Jean-Marc Léger said of the poll conducted for the Journal de Montréal and TVA. “The young, the old, anglophones, francophones ... the population is almost unanimous on this issue.”
In October 2016, the struggling train and plane multinational announced it would eliminate 7,500 jobs from its global workforce over two years, including 1,500 in Quebec. This was in addition to 7,000 job cuts announced in February.
Sunday’s protest unfolded peacefully with more than two dozen Montreal police officers standing on the perimeter as well as a handful of private Garda security guards posted in front of Bombardier’s René Lévesque Blvd. entrance.