This editorial cartoon is for my Occupy Wall Street friends. I am sure I will piss you off with a future cartoon but for now, I wanted to show my solidarity for one reason people should be rightfully pissed. Companies talk about teamwork and performance, etc etc etc. But damned if the executives can’t find a way (read excuse) to make sure their bonuses are intact while the rest of us have to do more with less.
Of course this isn’t a blanket statement for all executives or companies. So, any examples in your own companies where executives seem to get perks that are continually denied to the rest?
Oh yeah, 3 panels and 9 people in this one. You are welcome all you people who think I should spend 3 hours doing one cartoon.
That is so true. We haven’t had a bonus at work for several years no due to the economic downturn. We had one bloke fired about a year ago now to cut costs & we are all doing more work because of it. I’m sure the executives of the company are all on top class salaries.
Somehow you rarely see them deciding to layoff themselves
when an employee is incompetent he or she is dismissed with bugger all
when a banker or CEO is incompetent he or she is often dismissed with a healthy severance package that includes a pension, shares, and a sum of money equivalent to several years salary
is it any wonder there are protests ???
Doh… The comment form was still autofilled for Cedric.
Reading the comment as Cedric, I am the CEO of the company HE works for. I have had no bonus either
Yes but I heard you were an overbearing boss who pays peanuts…er cheese scraps.
Oh boy, Occupy Wall Street! You could go on and on with this one. I like. Glad I found a fellow artist to hand out with.
Why fancy bumping into you here, totsy 😆
P.S. Don’t go overboard with the praise for Bearman – you’ll make him bigheaded ! 😉
Don’t act like you know Totsy there Duncan. Geez. If she really knew you, she would have been posting over on your blog..haha
Thanks for coming by and finding me on G+
Ha, you need to keep up to speed with the comments posted on MadHatters, Bearman
Just saying ! 😆
That’s what I get for only reading posts that I can make a sarcastic remark.
My U.K. firm was taken over by one of the USA’s largest conglomerates. They set us various targets to achieve. every month When we surpass those targets, we get a bonus – a free friggin sandwich from the local deli 🙄
Says it all really, we work our asses off to put more money in their pockets and in return we get a sandwich – which is a great f*cken help in meeting the rising cost of food, fuel, housing, energy bills we’re experiencing !!! 👿
haha. At least you got a sandwich. Now for me, I don’t think a sandwich would cut it me putting in some overtime.
Yes those fat cats get richer while everyone else gets zilch 🙁 Of course there are the exceptions to the rule but I guess that those are far and few between these days…
An excellent comic strip my friend, I will be back 🙂
Andro. Thanks. Appreciate it. Hopefully see you again.
I agree everything about this comic. Rich getting richer, and Poor getting more poor. We need a robin hood. Bearman, can you be our robin hood?
Screw that. If I had the balls to steal from someone, do you think I would pass it on to your sorry asses?? haha
Harika bir siteniz var ya
For those of you who don’t speak Turkish just know he said “This is a great site” Seriously..that is what this means.
you get all the intelligent commenters over here 😉
Don’t forget us dumbasses. We are all here too.
Speak for yourself!
Let’s not forget that the real culprits are the folks in charge in Washington D.C. They allow this to happen. That is where folks should be protesting. I’m not pointing the finger at democrats or republicans. They have both allowed this to happen for years and years. That’s the problem. When they occupy The white-house I’ll be very happy.
Have a terrific day. 🙂
Well of course everyone has a little to blame. I am an equal opportunity finger pointer.
We should start an “Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue.” I started talking about this a few weeks ago.
That kinda thing happened where I work at. The higher-ups fired/laid-off a third of the work force (including my wife at one time), then gave the remaining employees raises and a 200 dollar bonus due to them “saving money”. My wife was rightfully P.O’d at their audacity.
I would hope they gave raises. Most would say…”You are lucky to have a job” suck it up.
Same warped logic applies in the public sector too.
To whit: we gave up our raises and longevity for the next three years for the supposed common good of helping to balance the state budget.
Then the guv’nor turns around and gives $7 million in bonuses to the non-union managers because, he says, “they’re legally obligated to get them.”
Really. What kind of f’d up state do you live in that anyone is legally obligated to get a bonus.
I live in Connecticut, where we have the equivalent of machine politics running all branches of the guv’ment, circa DC in 2009.
I’ll be elaborating a litte bit more tomorrow on my blog about it, but basically, the guv’nor has no spine.
Can’t wait to read it.
In my own experience companies have one main objective, making a profit. Now, I found the best companies find an approach to encourage their employees to want to work for the company. The best approach involves work conditions, respect, acknowledgment of good work, sharing of the profit, etc. I believe a good company can make a profit and be responsible to their workers.
good cartoon.
I read somewhere that companies have three choices of focus. Customers, Employees, Shareholders. Too many focus on the short term needs of the Shareholders and while that has some impact it tends to come at the cost of cutting staff when profits don’t go up. The ones who focus on employees tend to actually outperform the stock market for those that don’t.
I also have heard that. First off the genius that thought that one up knew most executives could only handle 3 choices at most. There are more choices. Community would be one that come to mind quickly. The shareholder focus is a sham. The exec’s are often biggest individual shareholders so the focus is on themselves which is what they often grew-up doing. Now I do own stock but I don’t want to see cutting staff because it indicates the company is in decline. Also I’ve been cut myself and it hurts.
When companies make huge profits, it’s the result of the top few executives and they get huge bonuses. When companies lose money, it’s because of the economy and the executives still get huge bonuses.
That’s because they are the ones who made the tough choices.
Anybody remember the “Twilight Zone” episode with the machine that replaced all of the employees, including the boss?
Automation has taken away jobs and given CEOs major bonuses.
Haven’t seen that one. Lot of companies it is like the second panel. Just do more.
Our State government sold our power and water companies to private concerns about 10 years ago under their “privatization” scheme, claiming it would be more efficient and cheaper for consumers. In the last 2 years there has been an 80% increase (yes you heard me ..80%) to consumers, with both the State government and the companies (which are foreign owned by the way) blaming the massive increase on rising costs. Needless to say they have proudly announced over the past two years record profits. Go figure.
Yeah…go figure. They should have sold it to a non profit. That way anything above costs you could write off on your taxes..haha
The same thing is happening here. I wonder how much of a kickback they get for selling us out?
That’s because you and the loon are both in Australia..haha
Actually I’m about 500 miles from you!
What?? Have you been creating a facade this whole time. Where are you? I’m coming and you better have some damn wine gums.
Nothing is ever as it appears 🙂
Everyone assumes I’m from Australia. I have no idea why!
I’ve set up a burrow near Toronto in a secret location known only to the Underground Marsipal Association.
CANADIAN. Oh how it ruins the entire facade.
This comic is spot on! I give props to the people protesting. There’s some in my city-Ottawa, Canada-who have said they will camp out in front of Parliament Hill until February. The weather here drops to -40 sometimes in February, so I’m not sure how commited they will be when it gets that friggin’ cold, but we’ll see.
Brrr…it is cold in canada now. What are the Canadians protesting against? American Corporations?
No Official Wombat Day, for one.
The wealth structure here is pretty similar to yours, though maybe not so pronounced.
You need to start one.
The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.
I am the few…what about my needs?
They’re probably going to hog all the best donuts in the office for themselves, too. Damn the 1% to hell!
So I probably should NOT have licked all of them?
Good handling of an explosive topic. I’ve been suppressing a couple of cartoons of mine because – well, they’re kind of mean and unfair. But it’s sooooo tempting…
Well my next idea is probably going to piss off the other side so go for it.
Haha, great comic Tony. This one made me chuckle for a while, its so true! We’re having occupy Vancouver at the moment…what do you think of the whole idea?
What does Canada have to complain about. I thought everything was perfect up there.
And quit calling me Tony..haha
Would she rather call you Tanya?
Yes…she is much prettier.
Scary how real this is. Nice job on putting a humorous spin on a hot button topic.
Thanks Chris. My best humor comes from scary.
You sure stiirred up the hornets this time. I think executives should work for the same meager salaries as College football coaches.
I like the companies where they say the top guy can’t make more than X times what the lowest paid guy gets.
X=10,000
Average guy = $30,000
Boss = $300,000,000
Sounds fair to me!
They say they couldn’t get talented people to take the job at that salary. Are they saying anyone making under $100,000 isn’t fit to lead?
I always say you could hire a team of guys at $100 grand and one leader at say $200 grand, and I’m sure you could get some pretty decent leadership for a million or so.
Raises hand.
Nice cartoon.
I agree – they do have the right to be pissed. I don’t think big business is bad by definition or executives and I’m not a big supporter of government intervention in the private sector but when good or bad that big business does directly affects the financial well being of the entire nation the government has a obligation to step in a do something about it.
There is a reason these protestors are pissed even if they cannot spell it out as succinctly as a business manager during a corporate earnings call. They are seeing fewer jobs, less pay, government cuts, inflation rise (no matter what they say it is rising) but the corporations who had a direct affect on the financial meltdown get our taxes dollars, still making huge profits and giving each other bonuses. Something ain’t right here and that’s why they (and I) are pissed off.
Did the average American act poorly with his money during the good times, yes he did. Do we all need a wakeup call and stop spending out of our means – absolutely, but corporations did the exact same thing with their money – leveraged themselves out to the hills and could not pay off the loans when everything went to hell. So both sides are equally guilty. Both sides were trying to keep up with the Jones and were greedy but only ONE side received money from the government to help them back on their feet AND rather than use it to loan more money to help the economy they just made more off of it in interest for themselves and didn’t create any jobs in the process.
Banks had to take bailout money whether they wanted to or not. For most it was a government tool to keep consumer confidence up and not have people do a run on the banks.
Now the feds are saying the banks have to keep more $$ on hand and they don’t want to see a bubble again so banks naturally have to raise their lending standards.
Given that if the bank can still turn a profit, it’s employees should be rewarded. No different than anyone elses company. But if execs get bonuses, it should trickle to everyone “WORTHY by performance not just title” in the company.
It seems to me that we need to take away the irresponsible law that makes a corporation a legal entity that separates the puppet-masters from the deeds of the puppet they are manipulating. If the shareholders and board members can’t be held accountable for their inhumane practices, they will continue to make decisions that hurt individuals and the country as a whole.
I’d be happy where they went back and said companies, unions can’t back candidates and oh you can’t get time on our congressional agenda unless we call you for your lobbying advice.
Yes. That sounds good to me too.
What does “bonus” mean?
… I’m sure I’ve never had one of those!
Bonus is what executives get.
Bone Us is what they do to us.
Great comic. I do believe that many of us have had to deal with things like this. I actually had one job where the boss would spend money on anything and then our check with everything going on these days, people need to stick together and the people up the food chain need to share the wealth. And by saying that i don’t mean they need to pay more taxes or whatever, I just think they need to try and help p[people rather than screw them. People are overworked and underpaid and it is becoming more and more of an issue.
ohh yea, I got the gravatar up!! You like that right! lol!
I was very impressed that you finally got your avatar working.
BTW…I didn’t understand at all that story on your boss….Ms Run on Sentence. haha
This is exactly why I left my last job!
Well this, and the fact that I don’t really like to work.
Hows that working out for you?
You hit the nail on the head with this one. This is exactly why people are pissed, and exactly what kind of shit has been going down. Now… how to get on the executive team…?
I know. We are pissed when others get the good stuff…then when we get it we like to hoard.
Isn’t it four panels? Anyway…
I like the comic. The people look funny.
I think the truth of this comic has been the way of things since the dawn of man, and history repeats and… repeats again.
Then we all are idiots. haha
Ha!
HaHa!
and this is why communism had a couple of good things
Yeah…except for that whole starvation and killing stuff.
village i grew up in was strongly communistic till the late 80’s
i could still see signs of it while i grew up nothing wrong with it on small scale
I like political satire side of your comics.
And that’s why I do them.
Those executive bonuses are what keeps good talent steering the helm of a large company. If the company is meeting expectations during an economic downturn, then even though those down the ladder are having their pay frozen or raises delayed, it means fewer layoffs and downsizing. …. yeah I know, I’m not buying what I said either! [wink]
I don’t mind pay freeze or delayed raises. But if I aint getting…you better not be getting. Oh and if we ARE making record earnings, you can’t tell me we can’t afford it.
Wow! More than a panel! Impressive…
I agree. It’s so true on too many levels
Thanks!
This cartoon could not speak more truth! Excellent!
Thanks Deb
3 pph?!
Not too shabby, Bearman.
🙂
3 pph??? what is that?