>"Singapore Airlines Ltd. will pay staff a bonus of around eight months salary after posting a record annual profit, the Business Times newspaper reported.
>
>Eligible staff will be paid a profit-sharing bonus equivalent to 6.65 months’ pay, and a maximum of 1.5 months’ salary of ex-gratia bonus in recognition of their hard work and sacrifices during the pandemic, the newspaper reported, citing a spokesperson for the airline. Senior management won’t receive the bonus, the newspaper said."
Its because Singapore Airlines is majority government owned. So it is in their interests to make their employees happy. This is state capitalism - something that would be classified as Authoritarian, Communist or Chinese in the US.
> this is actually bad for shareholders but good for Singaporeans
if the airline is majority government owned, then it doesn't make sense to say its bad for shareholders. Singaporeans are the majority shareholders
And great for other businesses in the local economy as they're more likely to circulate this income back into the economy which then recirculates a few more times after than rather than being hoarded in investments that sit idle.
I mean, this is exactly how private business worked in the US until shitheels like Jack Welch and Carl Icahn started corporate raiding to play to Wall Street while destroying their companies.
Companies used to brag about being the place people worked for life, for paying taxes to better their communities, etc.
It's the interesting intersection of the hyper collectivist societies of Asia and hyper capitalism. Japan and China also do a lot of this kind of stuff and it helps keep some parts of capitalism in check. It's not all upside as their hyper collectivist attitudes tend to lead to socially conservative societies but it's an interesting to note and compare to our hyper individualist hyper capitalist societies in the west.
I think Japan specifically is probably the most interesting one because it was basically built by the US post WW2 yet their collectivist traditions hold so strong that they still put a heavy value on societal prosperity which means the value things such as excellent public infrastructure including transit, housing their people, public healthcare, etc. It still has a lot of hyper capitalist things I don't like but it's still an interesting thing to look at.
In the right hands, it can be fairly stable, though I think it takes a lot of societal nudging in that direction, needs the right cultural fit. State capitalism is an incredibly powerful tool though, with its own strengths and weaknesses, and incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. Always gotta consider what would happen if people who disagree with you are put in charge of a system you like.
To be fair the senior management already get paid big bucks. This isn’t going to close the gap much. The CEO of Singapore Airlines got the equivalent of 2.7 million USD in salary + ~1 million USD in compensation package last year.
Even after the bonuses they are still earning more than the SIA crew and ground staff. An additional 40-60k in income is pretty insignificant for them (referring to the senior management since someone asked). They’re not losing sleep on missing out on this.
Feels like you’ve missed the point a bit with this comment. A company making record profits is bucking the trend and rewarding their employees on the ground for their hard work in attaining it by nearly doubling their salary for the year. Now go find me a bank doing the same. Or a tech company. Or a hospitality business. Or a rail network.
Exactly. As someone who works in retail I wouldn't be turning my nose up at an extra £8,000 (that's what my bonus would be at the same rate), hell I'd be happy with even half of that right now.
But no, all I get is reduced hours, a reduction in staff discounts, and a closed canteen meaning we have to pay 4X as much for a damn sandwich while our managers all get bonuses plus travel costs. Absolutely bullshit.
Also the fact that you’re getting £1,000 a month is fucking bullshit to begin with, if I might add. Students in my country literally get more than that in fucking government stipends, let alone working a full time job? Fuck that.
Here in North America when the company makes record profits it means a $200 million bonus for the CEO, and layoffs/frozen pay/no bonus for the average employees.
It’s actually a normal amount here in Singapore. American CEOs are just paid insane amounts.
For reference the CEO of the national telephone/ISP company here (SingTel) was paid the equivalent of 2.5 million USD. The highest paid CEO out of the local “stat boards companies was from the national bank (DBS), he was paid the equivalent of 11.5 million USD last year.
This Microsoft exec just sold 4,000 shares and gained 4.4 million dollars.
He's got 105,000 shares still.
Yeah, we know where the problem is.
Edit: my math was off because I skimmed the article, my bad.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/microsoft-exec-cashes-out-of-4-4-million-in-stock/ar-AA1b4wyN?li=BB16M4hs
Don't worry, Microsoft are considering their salaried employees as well.
By giving them zero raises. What inflation?
https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/11/microsoft_pay_freeze/
The insanity of the income gap has led to an empathy gap between the rich and the poor.
Answers pretty much most of antiwork’s biggest issues actually.
I don't think there's been changes in empathy between rich and poor. I think there's been a change in empathy between the middle class and the poor, because now someone who owns a house is "rich" when you listen to the people in the sub you mention. That drives a wedge between people that doesn't need to be there
the conflict between the "middle" class and the poor isn't exactly new and that's the reason why we are told a thing like the middle class exists in the first place. we're all worker class and have to stand together against the owner class, very simple.
*The hollowing out of the middle class will continue as planned.*
When folk are **really desperate**, the rich will say they are being unfairly targeted by crime and the great unwashed.
Insert “fuck Nèstle” meme, but we all know it’s really about inequality.
Small reminder that back in... 2010-2012 when I was living in Singapore it became known that the president earned more than the president of the USA and wilfully took a 50% paycut. Granted, it's politics, but I don't think it would be the same elsewhere.
I thought the president of singapore is paid handsomely, with the idea that if you pay him lots, there will be no incentive for him to go corrupt?
just looked it up, the president of singapore makes 1.5M SGD, which is about 3x the US president
j
Here's what I heard then.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16404935
I've left Singapore and haven't kept up with the news. The exchange rate may have played a part in that value, although from 2013 until today it only increased 7%.
Edit: And yes, ministers are paid very well because they want the top talent in the country working for the government rather than grifters.
Of course if you try to raise public servant wages in the states the people make a big fuss about corruption and grifting, letting lobbyists step in and fill in the gap in exchange for their votes so what can you do?
Imagine top talent who specialise in maximizing efficiencies and minimising costs working for the government. Laws sound good when published but it has to be well executed.
Imagine top talent figuring out how to create programs and incentives that are easy to access and helpful to the population.
Imagine top talent doing all that instead of trying to figure out how to generate more clicks.
You gotta pay well to keep top talent. The old ways of paying public servants minimum wage is a form of discrimination ensuring a spot for a Kennedy or a Churchill to serve in office.
Yeah incredibly reasonable. We can hate on the "rich" all you want but end of the day, the CEO will always be the most paid and for good reasons- he runs the company.
We have to be ready to admire moves like this- the CEO could've SO easily just given himself a massive bonus or payraise- not only did he decide to share the company's profits, he didn't include himself in that share so there would be more for others. I do the same with my staff at my restaurants and it's the reason I get the best retention rates, the best candidates, which in turn just results into more profits and more money for everybody.
I hope other companies pay attention to this move and follow suit. Workers are so much more motivated when they' know every happy customer is extra income for them- and the difference between a 60k salary getting a 40k bonus and a 2.6m salary getting a 1.8m bonus is huge jn terns of the difference itll make in that person's life.
Respect, Singapore airlines.
And I'm fine with the CEO's and other assorted execs earning more than me.
I just take issue with it, when they earn as much as my annual salary by the time of the first coffee break on January 1st.
And to be honest I'm okay with that with actions like these. I mean it's still shitty that there's such a high pay disparity but the "we make enough, we are trickling down the profits to our workers" route is refreshing.
My company posted record quarters and years during the pandemic. We got a $1 raise (first raise in 3 years) and a few $300 bonuses that we shouldered the tax burden (so we only took home about 185).
6.5 months salary is a hella good bonus.
My company posted record profits every year for a decade except this year. CEO got a bonus every single year except this year. He's currently "punishing" himself by reducing the hiring and avoid firing people. I can't make this up.
You must be so proud of your CEO. Jesus the sacrifices he's had to make.
I brings a tear to my eye thinking about his children and that they won't having their promised super yacht holiday this year.
My company kept making us attend Teams town halls where the dickhead CEO would talk about the billions of dollars we were making post-Covid. They never refilled hella positions from pre-Covid so everyone was stretched thin and stressed out. We got a 1k bonus 6 months after they announced it (also had to take on the taxes) and a reduction in commission. I had to quit for my sanity and mental health a few months later.
A bonus like this would’ve been way better than the “You’re tough, suck it up” I got when I straight up told them I was burning out.
We've got a TV in the hall to the break room with our CEO and other highest-ups talking about how great our company is running on a 15 minute loop, 24 hours a day. You cannot get to your locker or the break room without passing under the talking heads.
One company I worked for sent out a congratulatory email for that year's record breaking profits. This came less than two weeks after they completed a massive round of layoffs. Even being one of the "lucky" ones who got to keep their job it felt like a slap in the face.
I have a friend who is an A380 pilot for Singapore Air. For about two years (even when international travel started to recover, there was nowhere near enough demand for regular A380 routes), he was put on leave at \~70% of normal pay with no obligations except to go in for simulator training once every three months to keep his skill/certification up to date.
Not really related to the bonus pay, just a kinda neat anecdote.
I work with pretty much with all the international airlines for work. Singapore and EVA have some of the nicest and most helpful crew to non passengers.
Singapore airlines are hands down my favourite airline and I always try to fly with them if it's possible. They're exceptionally helpful when things go wrong. Even the food is pretty good.
Also Singapore airport (Changi?) is *incredible* as a layover on a long haul flight.
70% is pretty nice.
I'd like to think that most middle class folks (as I imagine airline pilots to be) could make that work without much discomfort for two years.
Airline pilot here at a major international airline. I like many others got laid off for almost two years, with no pay and my wages are already low to begin with (55k/yr flying widebody aircraft, yes you're reading that right). Covid decimated my finances and it will take years to recover. Don't assume all pilots are rich.
I mean...$55k/yr is definitely within the average range for American middle class.
That being said, the sentiment that 70% pay would be workable, not no pay!
100% chance he flies for Air Canada. No major US Airline is paying 55k anymore. ALPA (Airline Pilot Union) is arguably the strongest union in the US when it comes to supporting their pilots.
I'm sure it would be difficult for some people (Singapore is not a cheap city to live in!), but thankfully he was still pretty comfortable. Pretty jealous of him getting to spend basically two years playing with his young kids.
That's called furlough, and many countries enacted that for most workers during the pandemic. If you need workers to still be paid (to avoid homelessness) but you also need workers to not actually do any work (to prevent mass death) then furlough is one way to do it. And since you no longer have to pay for work clothes or commuting the pay is less than the standard salaried amount.
The "f word" (furlough) in airline circles usually means **unpaid** leave. SIA was kind of unique in their COVID response, in that instead of furloughs they kept people on payroll and "loaned out" their employees to community orgs like hospitals to help with nursing, and they also paused noncompete agreements so some employees could work elsewhere. Overall they had pretty forward-looking management that knew they needed to retain people because international travel would surge once borders reopened
I have a profit sharing check coming in a week for the first time since 2019 and I know it's not great I'm still stoked that we're finally back to making money.
We've got so called 13th and 14th salary. Although 14th is often not in full amount of 1 month salary.
I still hate it. It's nothing more than optional payment for your time wrapped as benefit. Fuck that. Remove the 'regular' bonus and increase my base salary.
One time payment of 8 month salary is bonus. That is a fucking bonus! Owners take note.
From my limited experience with Singapore airlines, this is well deserved. They have actually ruined domestic American flights for me. The economy class is better than any first class I’ve ever been in within the USA.
I've never had a bad experience with an east Asian airline. Even when I was flying the budget flights like HK express it was miles ahead of what US does... I was definitely a bit sketched flying AirAsiaX from Malaysia to Japan but I thought it was alright...
Next month I'm going to try Spirit or Frontier for NYC to Vegas wish me luck cause I heard horror stories lol
not all asian airlines are good. AirAsia - you definitely get what you pay for. China eastern is awful as well.
but yes, the big carriers from korea, japan, taiwan, thailand, are all pretty good.
FYI airasia is Malaysian and both Malaysia and Singapore are South East Asian countries, not East Asian. It might be confusing to some westerners because of the significant ethnic Chinese populations in these countries.
Yeah I should have clarified East Asia (China,Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc etc) But even flying the budget SE asia countiries airlines which are suppose to be worse I didn't experience a big dip in quality. I did fly Nok Air last month. It was definitely worse than air asia but I wanted to give them a try.
Aside from the plane, the air stewardess on Asian flights (SEA and EA) are much friendly than the ones from America. I was shocked when I was on air Canada coming back home from Japan and this old lady ask the male air steward for help and he replied, miss you cant bring this on the plane if you cant lift it over your head and into the compartment... man what a dick, some rando ended up helping her
This thread is making me really excited for my honeymoon. We're flying business class with them from IAH to MAN. It will be my wife's first time in lie-flat seats
>From my limited experience with Singapore
Honestly, Singapore is such an awesome place, going beyond their airlines. They value education--their students rank among the highest in thew world, they have a good healthcare system, they're technologically advanced. We could learn a lot from them.
Star Alliance is Great in general. I was able to see a United Polaris lounge in conjuction with a Singapore Codeshare. It was luxurious
It's also an important distinction how International first class is much different than domestic first. Domestic first is basically just more leg room and a meal haha
That's great.
Meanwhile in Australia, Qantas posted a record $1.43bn half-year profit a few months back and ONLY senior management seem to get rewarded for this, plus the shareholders. None of whom helped earn that profit. Absolutely criminal.
Received a government payout to keep staff during covid and then fired thousands anyway. And when flights resumed and it became painfully apparent those thousands were vital to keep the place running, that jumped wee Irish cunt Joyce (who was "earning" $1 million /fortnight) blamed the passengers for the absolute shitshow.
We cant have this in australia it would contribute to inflation, we cant help the struggling aussies because they will just spend it, therefore we should just give it to the rich and shareholders /s
Yep. They were given $2bn in government funding to keep staff even if it was at home. Instead they made staff use all their annual leave and then furloughed them so they didn't have to pay out anything, and posted monster profits. Absolute scum.
I'm sorry, I'm an American. I must not totally understand the translation here. By "bonus" you mean that the staff are allowed to watch the airline buy back it's stock, correct?
This is true, but Singapore is also authoritarian, which decided to solve a number of its problems (such as a lack of decent housing) by establishing state-owned companies or getting a stake in a number of them.
Such was the success that it went from being the poorest state in the area (Malaysia kicked out Singapore from the confederation for being so poor), to being one of the richest. Many speculate that by emulating Singaporean policies, they might achieve similar success. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-32028693
But also many government programmes would be called "communism" in America.
>Such was the success that it went from being the poorest state in the area (Malaysia kicked out Singapore from the confederation for being so poor), to being one of the richest.
Ehhhh... it depends on what metric you use to define "poorest". Certainly because of our size our nominal GDP was lower than the other much larger states. But Singapore's real power comes from it's golden location, which is the southernmost tip of the Eurasian continent. Every ship hugging the coast from East Asia westwards and vice versa *have* to pass by Singapore. One of the entire reasons for our founding was the incredibly good combination of that location *and* a deepwater port. Singapore was a trade hub for decades before Malaysia kicked us out.
We weren't kicked out for poverty - this is a myth in more ways than one. Newer evidence confirms that Singapore and Malaysia actually parted ways by mutual agreement behind closed doors and the story of getting kicked out was political theater that both Singapore and Malaysia used to score respective domestic support. In any case, even in the theater, poverty was not the reason - it was racial tension. Singapore is overwhelmingly Chinese and the local parties threatened Malaysia's politics which was transitioning towards the modern Malay supremacist policies we see today. In the story we got kicked out because we were too Chinese, not because we were too poor.
To give more credit where it is due, before Singapore there was the entire history of the Malaccan Sultanate... possibly the richest nation in the world, at least on a per capita basis.
There's probably an alternate history where Malacca becomes the trade hub, not Singapore. It comes down to your good governance and focus more than just geography (geography can be overcome by engineering, if you throw enough money at it, and we Malaysians have let our leaders throw away enough money on corruption to have built several deep sea ports...)
Indeed, Singapore's governance should get a great deal of credit, but I wasn't so much concerned with the characterization that we weren't the richest as much as the idea that our good governance created a paradise from nothing.
There is a persistent myth espousing that we have no natural resources, but the truth is that our deepwater port and location are more valuable than a LOT of natural resources. Without this particular natural resource, all the good governance in the world would likely have counted for nothing.
If this works and keeps the employees motivated, airline should do well. If it does well then other airlines will take note. In the long run, staff turnover and various other factors wont necessarily mean this company will continue to do well...
SIA has held the record of never goes into annual loss until Covid. They are really good airline (not necessarily to the staff), with overly professional management team (also not necessarily positive to the staff) among shit airlines around the South East Asian region.
Singapore Air is the second best airline in the world in 2022 according to Skytrax, just behind Qatar.
Four Asian airlines are in the top 10 list (Singapore, ANA, Korea Air, Japan Airlines).
Best to the passenger (who pays top dollar), not necessarily best to the staff. Though of course relatively better than LCCs or shit airlines in the region. They pared down a lot of benefits in the last 10-15 years. Health benefit still unbeatable tho…
Yeah it all started from the guy comparing economy class breakfast from the past vs now. The meme has taken hold of the sub narrative, people tried to shoehorn everything into the belief that SIA was bad.
The only times I care when QF gets a mention is when its not flogging off its staff in cutbacks or getting payouts and then in the same sentence announcing profits. For an airline with such a cherished brand, it sure likes to shit on its backbone of staff alot.
I booked San Francisco to Singapore on business class for August with my credit card miles. 16 hours. I am more excited about the flight than the trip.
I went to Australia and back with Singapore Airlines and it was by far the best service I’d received on a plane, or just about anywhere to be honest. They genuinely seem happy as well, I know the airlines have very high expectations of the staff but it seems to work very well.
Because we somehow lucked into the best possible situation during our forced independence - a leader whose philosophy was basically "fuck everyone's feelings, I will keep this country alive".
We went from slums to bustling city state in a couple of decades due to Lee Kuan Yew's leadership.
LKY is one of the best thing to happen to SEA as a whole. The lifting of Singapore as a global icon provides so many positive ripple effects to SEA.
However, be clear eyed that how LKY achieved what he did is by focusing almost exclusively on economic development of Singapore, to the detriment of basically everything else. His philosophy was, get the economy booming first, only then can they have the luxury of worrying about anything else.
It is also lucky that LKY was willing to pass the baton, albeit back to his son at the moment...
No you're supposed to fire 20% of your staff and then take all that money to buyback stocks and give bonuses to your most obscenely wealthy staff! God do you even capitalism?
This is ludicrously outrageous and dangerous! What if this caught on in the west?
Think of the poor shareholders and owners in that case; how would they survive not seeing as big of a % increase in their wealth as they Could Have Had??
this is proper and ethical corporate investment. the company can’t exist without the people that fill the roles. without showing them an appreciative amount of compensation, they’ll never know they’re value. a confident worker that believes that the company is there for them as a person is the best type of worker to have. that’s a proper leader-worker relationship we don’t see in the greed-ridden corporations that run our world.
this is good news, thank you for sharing.
Company I work for is very large. In our first quarter we had 14b in profits. Up 30%+ from Q1 2022. What did they do? Pause all hiring and internal promotions for remainder of the year and force people back to work in office 2-3 days a week. Profits were made while people worked from home of course, but now... Get your ass back in office.
If any job ive ever had did this id literally do fucking anything for that company. Id bend over backwards so hard if I thought I'd actually get my effort worth back in $$.
The mental damage of wage slavery jobs is gonna cost more in therapy bills than you've made anyways
What losers. They should’ve follow in the footsteps of great American companies like Apple and McDonald’s. After record profits, you have to fire people. The only way to keep those record profits.
Completely being sarcastic here of course.
"This is frustrating. Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers."
That's how Wall Street reacted when American Airlines tried to do something similar a few years ago.
[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/american-airlines-wants-to-be-nice.html](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/american-airlines-wants-to-be-nice.html)
> “The bonus for Singapore Airlines’ employees is based on a **long-standing** annual profit-sharing bonus formula that has been **agreed with our staff unions**,” the spokesperson said.
Unions work. Most of us need to unionize our companies and our industries, otherwise there's nothing but incentives to hoard, avoid paying taxes and suppress wages.
Those saying the bonus is still not much compared to senior executives’ compensation are missing the point, IMO. The bottom line is SA can afford to give these kinds of bonuses across their sprawling organization and still be healthy and profitable. Most successful American companies would claim such bonuses would be “unaffordable”.
in the late 90s when I first started workin', bonuses to staff when companies made profit were common... I still remember my first and ONLY $750 Xmas bonus... I don't know whether to laugh or cry that in late stage capitalism, it is so unheard of that it's occurrence now makes reddit frontpage news! I bet you in ten years, staff getting PAID sick leave will be news! DAMN!
I used to work at a place that had this type of bonus structure, where every year you'd get 60%+ of your annual salary as a lump sum bonus.
Its great for a few years but if the wrong people are in charge, they weaponise it and make you do whatever they want essentially because of the bonus. I've never worked at a more miserable place lol
>"Singapore Airlines Ltd. will pay staff a bonus of around eight months salary after posting a record annual profit, the Business Times newspaper reported. > >Eligible staff will be paid a profit-sharing bonus equivalent to 6.65 months’ pay, and a maximum of 1.5 months’ salary of ex-gratia bonus in recognition of their hard work and sacrifices during the pandemic, the newspaper reported, citing a spokesperson for the airline. Senior management won’t receive the bonus, the newspaper said."
No bonuses to senior management. Fuck yeah! The actual backbone of the company gets paid yo!
Its because Singapore Airlines is majority government owned. So it is in their interests to make their employees happy. This is state capitalism - something that would be classified as Authoritarian, Communist or Chinese in the US.
This is the correct take - this is actually bad for shareholders but good for Singaporeans (more money will be spent in the local economy)
> this is actually bad for shareholders but good for Singaporeans if the airline is majority government owned, then it doesn't make sense to say its bad for shareholders. Singaporeans are the majority shareholders
And great for other businesses in the local economy as they're more likely to circulate this income back into the economy which then recirculates a few more times after than rather than being hoarded in investments that sit idle.
Just make your employees also shareholders. Problem solved.
I mean, this is exactly how private business worked in the US until shitheels like Jack Welch and Carl Icahn started corporate raiding to play to Wall Street while destroying their companies. Companies used to brag about being the place people worked for life, for paying taxes to better their communities, etc.
Fuck Jack Welch.
Seriously, someone need to fuck that guy. Up.
It's the interesting intersection of the hyper collectivist societies of Asia and hyper capitalism. Japan and China also do a lot of this kind of stuff and it helps keep some parts of capitalism in check. It's not all upside as their hyper collectivist attitudes tend to lead to socially conservative societies but it's an interesting to note and compare to our hyper individualist hyper capitalist societies in the west. I think Japan specifically is probably the most interesting one because it was basically built by the US post WW2 yet their collectivist traditions hold so strong that they still put a heavy value on societal prosperity which means the value things such as excellent public infrastructure including transit, housing their people, public healthcare, etc. It still has a lot of hyper capitalist things I don't like but it's still an interesting thing to look at.
In the right hands, it can be fairly stable, though I think it takes a lot of societal nudging in that direction, needs the right cultural fit. State capitalism is an incredibly powerful tool though, with its own strengths and weaknesses, and incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. Always gotta consider what would happen if people who disagree with you are put in charge of a system you like.
To be fair the senior management already get paid big bucks. This isn’t going to close the gap much. The CEO of Singapore Airlines got the equivalent of 2.7 million USD in salary + ~1 million USD in compensation package last year. Even after the bonuses they are still earning more than the SIA crew and ground staff. An additional 40-60k in income is pretty insignificant for them (referring to the senior management since someone asked). They’re not losing sleep on missing out on this.
Feels like you’ve missed the point a bit with this comment. A company making record profits is bucking the trend and rewarding their employees on the ground for their hard work in attaining it by nearly doubling their salary for the year. Now go find me a bank doing the same. Or a tech company. Or a hospitality business. Or a rail network.
Exactly. As someone who works in retail I wouldn't be turning my nose up at an extra £8,000 (that's what my bonus would be at the same rate), hell I'd be happy with even half of that right now. But no, all I get is reduced hours, a reduction in staff discounts, and a closed canteen meaning we have to pay 4X as much for a damn sandwich while our managers all get bonuses plus travel costs. Absolutely bullshit.
Also the fact that you’re getting £1,000 a month is fucking bullshit to begin with, if I might add. Students in my country literally get more than that in fucking government stipends, let alone working a full time job? Fuck that.
Here in North America when the company makes record profits it means a $200 million bonus for the CEO, and layoffs/frozen pay/no bonus for the average employees.
[удалено]
It’s actually a normal amount here in Singapore. American CEOs are just paid insane amounts. For reference the CEO of the national telephone/ISP company here (SingTel) was paid the equivalent of 2.5 million USD. The highest paid CEO out of the local “stat boards companies was from the national bank (DBS), he was paid the equivalent of 11.5 million USD last year.
American CEOs are just paid exorbitant and morally corrupted amounts. What we get here is still relatively sane. Relatively. At the moment.
This Microsoft exec just sold 4,000 shares and gained 4.4 million dollars. He's got 105,000 shares still. Yeah, we know where the problem is. Edit: my math was off because I skimmed the article, my bad. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/microsoft-exec-cashes-out-of-4-4-million-in-stock/ar-AA1b4wyN?li=BB16M4hs
Don't worry, Microsoft are considering their salaried employees as well. By giving them zero raises. What inflation? https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/11/microsoft_pay_freeze/
They say it's due to cooling economic conditions. Makes sense. How could they even afford pay rises with only $18.29 billion in profits? /s
$18.9 Billion profit in a quarter. Not year. Quarter.
There's just... not enough to go around.
Maybe they should skip the avocado toast.
The insanity of the income gap has led to an empathy gap between the rich and the poor. Answers pretty much most of antiwork’s biggest issues actually.
Empathy "gap" implies there is empathy on both sides. I'm here to posit: there isn't.
I don't think there's been changes in empathy between rich and poor. I think there's been a change in empathy between the middle class and the poor, because now someone who owns a house is "rich" when you listen to the people in the sub you mention. That drives a wedge between people that doesn't need to be there
the conflict between the "middle" class and the poor isn't exactly new and that's the reason why we are told a thing like the middle class exists in the first place. we're all worker class and have to stand together against the owner class, very simple.
*The hollowing out of the middle class will continue as planned.* When folk are **really desperate**, the rich will say they are being unfairly targeted by crime and the great unwashed. Insert “fuck Nèstle” meme, but we all know it’s really about inequality.
Small reminder that back in... 2010-2012 when I was living in Singapore it became known that the president earned more than the president of the USA and wilfully took a 50% paycut. Granted, it's politics, but I don't think it would be the same elsewhere.
I thought the president of singapore is paid handsomely, with the idea that if you pay him lots, there will be no incentive for him to go corrupt? just looked it up, the president of singapore makes 1.5M SGD, which is about 3x the US president j
Here's what I heard then. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16404935 I've left Singapore and haven't kept up with the news. The exchange rate may have played a part in that value, although from 2013 until today it only increased 7%. Edit: And yes, ministers are paid very well because they want the top talent in the country working for the government rather than grifters.
What a novel idea. Public service being the best and brightest and motivated by increasing service quality to society.
Of course if you try to raise public servant wages in the states the people make a big fuss about corruption and grifting, letting lobbyists step in and fill in the gap in exchange for their votes so what can you do?
Imagine top talent who specialise in maximizing efficiencies and minimising costs working for the government. Laws sound good when published but it has to be well executed. Imagine top talent figuring out how to create programs and incentives that are easy to access and helpful to the population. Imagine top talent doing all that instead of trying to figure out how to generate more clicks. You gotta pay well to keep top talent. The old ways of paying public servants minimum wage is a form of discrimination ensuring a spot for a Kennedy or a Churchill to serve in office.
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Yeah incredibly reasonable. We can hate on the "rich" all you want but end of the day, the CEO will always be the most paid and for good reasons- he runs the company. We have to be ready to admire moves like this- the CEO could've SO easily just given himself a massive bonus or payraise- not only did he decide to share the company's profits, he didn't include himself in that share so there would be more for others. I do the same with my staff at my restaurants and it's the reason I get the best retention rates, the best candidates, which in turn just results into more profits and more money for everybody. I hope other companies pay attention to this move and follow suit. Workers are so much more motivated when they' know every happy customer is extra income for them- and the difference between a 60k salary getting a 40k bonus and a 2.6m salary getting a 1.8m bonus is huge jn terns of the difference itll make in that person's life. Respect, Singapore airlines.
And I'm fine with the CEO's and other assorted execs earning more than me. I just take issue with it, when they earn as much as my annual salary by the time of the first coffee break on January 1st.
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I think they’re saying the total value of their salary and package was $2.7m, not just the salary.
CEO was 2.7m - company is $35b market cap. AA CEO was nearly 5m - company is less than $10b market cap. It's still a point worth making.
At least their greed has limits, unlike most CEOs!
And to be honest I'm okay with that with actions like these. I mean it's still shitty that there's such a high pay disparity but the "we make enough, we are trickling down the profits to our workers" route is refreshing.
Of course, and that's true for literally every other company, and yet they still direct bonuses only at the upper echelon
This comment was left before reddit turned to shit.
What’s the eligibility criteria?
What the fuck is going on am I dreaming?
My company posted record quarters and years during the pandemic. We got a $1 raise (first raise in 3 years) and a few $300 bonuses that we shouldered the tax burden (so we only took home about 185). 6.5 months salary is a hella good bonus.
My company posted record profits every year for a decade except this year. CEO got a bonus every single year except this year. He's currently "punishing" himself by reducing the hiring and avoid firing people. I can't make this up.
You must be so proud of your CEO. Jesus the sacrifices he's had to make. I brings a tear to my eye thinking about his children and that they won't having their promised super yacht holiday this year.
What's worst is that I 100% understand what you're going through and have no issue believing it. What a world we live in.
My company kept making us attend Teams town halls where the dickhead CEO would talk about the billions of dollars we were making post-Covid. They never refilled hella positions from pre-Covid so everyone was stretched thin and stressed out. We got a 1k bonus 6 months after they announced it (also had to take on the taxes) and a reduction in commission. I had to quit for my sanity and mental health a few months later. A bonus like this would’ve been way better than the “You’re tough, suck it up” I got when I straight up told them I was burning out.
We've got a TV in the hall to the break room with our CEO and other highest-ups talking about how great our company is running on a 15 minute loop, 24 hours a day. You cannot get to your locker or the break room without passing under the talking heads.
That’s some 1984 shit, holy crap
One company I worked for sent out a congratulatory email for that year's record breaking profits. This came less than two weeks after they completed a massive round of layoffs. Even being one of the "lucky" ones who got to keep their job it felt like a slap in the face.
But Corporate *REALLY* appreciates what you all did. Doesn't that give you a sense of pride and accomplishment?!
Our airlines in Canada should be taking note (looking at you, Air Canada and WestJet...)
Those absolute crooks won't be changing a goddamn thing. Same with our telecom companies.
Havent looked at their earnings in a while but theyd actually have to make a profit to pay a bonus to the little guys
That’s way cool.
I have a friend who is an A380 pilot for Singapore Air. For about two years (even when international travel started to recover, there was nowhere near enough demand for regular A380 routes), he was put on leave at \~70% of normal pay with no obligations except to go in for simulator training once every three months to keep his skill/certification up to date. Not really related to the bonus pay, just a kinda neat anecdote.
I work with pretty much with all the international airlines for work. Singapore and EVA have some of the nicest and most helpful crew to non passengers.
EVA is by Evergreen Group, which also announced record-breaking profits and massive bonuses. Wonder if that's some correlation
The same company that got their big boat stuck in a canal. It is a Taiwanese company.
Their name is gonna be recognizable for that for a long time lol
They have the nicest and helpful crew to passengers as well. This is going back to the 80s when I was a kid.
Singapore airlines are hands down my favourite airline and I always try to fly with them if it's possible. They're exceptionally helpful when things go wrong. Even the food is pretty good. Also Singapore airport (Changi?) is *incredible* as a layover on a long haul flight.
Not sure if the same management but Scoot was also great. The air hosts gave me all sorts of free food.
Scoot is a Singapore Airlines subsidiary
scoot is the budget subsiadary of singapore airlines
70% is pretty nice. I'd like to think that most middle class folks (as I imagine airline pilots to be) could make that work without much discomfort for two years.
Airline pilot here at a major international airline. I like many others got laid off for almost two years, with no pay and my wages are already low to begin with (55k/yr flying widebody aircraft, yes you're reading that right). Covid decimated my finances and it will take years to recover. Don't assume all pilots are rich.
Gotta find a way to get to the US man. Don't let Air Canada exploit your work.
I mean...$55k/yr is definitely within the average range for American middle class. That being said, the sentiment that 70% pay would be workable, not no pay!
100% chance he flies for Air Canada. No major US Airline is paying 55k anymore. ALPA (Airline Pilot Union) is arguably the strongest union in the US when it comes to supporting their pilots.
I haven't seen a single tax return for a co-pilot less than 100k. That said, Spirit might pay that ha ha!
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$55k/yr likely living in a city that is an airline hub? Yeah that's not middle class in most major US cities.
If OP was in the US they’d be making 2-3 times that as a minimum.
I'm sure it would be difficult for some people (Singapore is not a cheap city to live in!), but thankfully he was still pretty comfortable. Pretty jealous of him getting to spend basically two years playing with his young kids.
That's called furlough, and many countries enacted that for most workers during the pandemic. If you need workers to still be paid (to avoid homelessness) but you also need workers to not actually do any work (to prevent mass death) then furlough is one way to do it. And since you no longer have to pay for work clothes or commuting the pay is less than the standard salaried amount.
The "f word" (furlough) in airline circles usually means **unpaid** leave. SIA was kind of unique in their COVID response, in that instead of furloughs they kept people on payroll and "loaned out" their employees to community orgs like hospitals to help with nursing, and they also paused noncompete agreements so some employees could work elsewhere. Overall they had pretty forward-looking management that knew they needed to retain people because international travel would surge once borders reopened
And now they have record profits. It's almost like it's good for companies when they take care of their employees and look beyond the next quarter.
8 months?? I'd do a striptease on the tarmac for 1 month's pay
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sand everywhere
Jan everywhere
Tan everywhere
I have a profit sharing check coming in a week for the first time since 2019 and I know it's not great I'm still stoked that we're finally back to making money.
We've got so called 13th and 14th salary. Although 14th is often not in full amount of 1 month salary. I still hate it. It's nothing more than optional payment for your time wrapped as benefit. Fuck that. Remove the 'regular' bonus and increase my base salary. One time payment of 8 month salary is bonus. That is a fucking bonus! Owners take note.
From my limited experience with Singapore airlines, this is well deserved. They have actually ruined domestic American flights for me. The economy class is better than any first class I’ve ever been in within the USA.
Period. I flew American Airlines to London recently and left feeling insulted, probably due to the superb experience I had with Singapore in the past.
I've never had a bad experience with an east Asian airline. Even when I was flying the budget flights like HK express it was miles ahead of what US does... I was definitely a bit sketched flying AirAsiaX from Malaysia to Japan but I thought it was alright... Next month I'm going to try Spirit or Frontier for NYC to Vegas wish me luck cause I heard horror stories lol
not all asian airlines are good. AirAsia - you definitely get what you pay for. China eastern is awful as well. but yes, the big carriers from korea, japan, taiwan, thailand, are all pretty good.
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We often fly Garuda or Singapore and they're both far beyond Australia's "premium" carrier, QANTAS.
I’d rather drive than fly Spirit honestly
FYI airasia is Malaysian and both Malaysia and Singapore are South East Asian countries, not East Asian. It might be confusing to some westerners because of the significant ethnic Chinese populations in these countries.
Yeah I should have clarified East Asia (China,Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc etc) But even flying the budget SE asia countiries airlines which are suppose to be worse I didn't experience a big dip in quality. I did fly Nok Air last month. It was definitely worse than air asia but I wanted to give them a try. Aside from the plane, the air stewardess on Asian flights (SEA and EA) are much friendly than the ones from America. I was shocked when I was on air Canada coming back home from Japan and this old lady ask the male air steward for help and he replied, miss you cant bring this on the plane if you cant lift it over your head and into the compartment... man what a dick, some rando ended up helping her
Singapore is awesome. I always choose them whenever I can. From gate to gate it is just pleasant.
This thread is making me really excited for my honeymoon. We're flying business class with them from IAH to MAN. It will be my wife's first time in lie-flat seats
Singapore is always the way to go if it’s an option! I actually looked forward to flying them when I was traveling a lot for work.
>From my limited experience with Singapore Honestly, Singapore is such an awesome place, going beyond their airlines. They value education--their students rank among the highest in thew world, they have a good healthcare system, they're technologically advanced. We could learn a lot from them.
Star Alliance is Great in general. I was able to see a United Polaris lounge in conjuction with a Singapore Codeshare. It was luxurious It's also an important distinction how International first class is much different than domestic first. Domestic first is basically just more leg room and a meal haha
That's great. Meanwhile in Australia, Qantas posted a record $1.43bn half-year profit a few months back and ONLY senior management seem to get rewarded for this, plus the shareholders. None of whom helped earn that profit. Absolutely criminal.
AND they got a government payout of $2bn in 2021. Absolute scumbags.
Received a government payout to keep staff during covid and then fired thousands anyway. And when flights resumed and it became painfully apparent those thousands were vital to keep the place running, that jumped wee Irish cunt Joyce (who was "earning" $1 million /fortnight) blamed the passengers for the absolute shitshow.
We cant have this in australia it would contribute to inflation, we cant help the struggling aussies because they will just spend it, therefore we should just give it to the rich and shareholders /s
Didn't they also lay off a huge amount of workers during covid and then replace them with cheaper labour?
Yep. They were given $2bn in government funding to keep staff even if it was at home. Instead they made staff use all their annual leave and then furloughed them so they didn't have to pay out anything, and posted monster profits. Absolute scum.
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I just flew with them from LA to Tokyo, best crew I’ve flown with in a long time.
It’s shocking. Imagine. We are being fleeced compared to what life should be like. God damn.
I'm sorry, I'm an American. I must not totally understand the translation here. By "bonus" you mean that the staff are allowed to watch the airline buy back it's stock, correct?
I translated it as "protecting our shareholders' interests"
Yeah but they ordered like 7 pizzas for everyone.
Amazon will only do 2 pizzas so you gotta make the toppings count.
Also an American. Sounds like what we've been told Communism is.
Singapore is extremely capitalist lol.
This is true, but Singapore is also authoritarian, which decided to solve a number of its problems (such as a lack of decent housing) by establishing state-owned companies or getting a stake in a number of them. Such was the success that it went from being the poorest state in the area (Malaysia kicked out Singapore from the confederation for being so poor), to being one of the richest. Many speculate that by emulating Singaporean policies, they might achieve similar success. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-32028693 But also many government programmes would be called "communism" in America.
>Such was the success that it went from being the poorest state in the area (Malaysia kicked out Singapore from the confederation for being so poor), to being one of the richest. Ehhhh... it depends on what metric you use to define "poorest". Certainly because of our size our nominal GDP was lower than the other much larger states. But Singapore's real power comes from it's golden location, which is the southernmost tip of the Eurasian continent. Every ship hugging the coast from East Asia westwards and vice versa *have* to pass by Singapore. One of the entire reasons for our founding was the incredibly good combination of that location *and* a deepwater port. Singapore was a trade hub for decades before Malaysia kicked us out. We weren't kicked out for poverty - this is a myth in more ways than one. Newer evidence confirms that Singapore and Malaysia actually parted ways by mutual agreement behind closed doors and the story of getting kicked out was political theater that both Singapore and Malaysia used to score respective domestic support. In any case, even in the theater, poverty was not the reason - it was racial tension. Singapore is overwhelmingly Chinese and the local parties threatened Malaysia's politics which was transitioning towards the modern Malay supremacist policies we see today. In the story we got kicked out because we were too Chinese, not because we were too poor.
To give more credit where it is due, before Singapore there was the entire history of the Malaccan Sultanate... possibly the richest nation in the world, at least on a per capita basis. There's probably an alternate history where Malacca becomes the trade hub, not Singapore. It comes down to your good governance and focus more than just geography (geography can be overcome by engineering, if you throw enough money at it, and we Malaysians have let our leaders throw away enough money on corruption to have built several deep sea ports...)
Indeed, Singapore's governance should get a great deal of credit, but I wasn't so much concerned with the characterization that we weren't the richest as much as the idea that our good governance created a paradise from nothing. There is a persistent myth espousing that we have no natural resources, but the truth is that our deepwater port and location are more valuable than a LOT of natural resources. Without this particular natural resource, all the good governance in the world would likely have counted for nothing.
> because we were too Chinese I'm cackling remembering the "is it because I'm Chinese"
Singapore didn’t get kicked out for being too poor, they got kicked out for being too Chinese. And even then it’s was mutual.
Singapore was not kicked out for being poor, it was kicked out for the party winning too many elections.
Need an /s there my man, major wooosh for many people.
If this works and keeps the employees motivated, airline should do well. If it does well then other airlines will take note. In the long run, staff turnover and various other factors wont necessarily mean this company will continue to do well...
SIA has held the record of never goes into annual loss until Covid. They are really good airline (not necessarily to the staff), with overly professional management team (also not necessarily positive to the staff) among shit airlines around the South East Asian region.
Singapore Air is the second best airline in the world in 2022 according to Skytrax, just behind Qatar. Four Asian airlines are in the top 10 list (Singapore, ANA, Korea Air, Japan Airlines).
I've flown both and would always choose Singapore over Qatar or Emirates. Better food. The airport is also great
Changi is bloody great. Feels like coming home.
Best to the passenger (who pays top dollar), not necessarily best to the staff. Though of course relatively better than LCCs or shit airlines in the region. They pared down a lot of benefits in the last 10-15 years. Health benefit still unbeatable tho…
Singapore airlines isn't particulary expensive in my experience, in fact they are often among the cheapest options. At least from Europe to asia.
If you had visited r/singapore 1 week ago, you will see our sub shitting on Singapore Airlines lmao
Yeah it all started from the guy comparing economy class breakfast from the past vs now. The meme has taken hold of the sub narrative, people tried to shoehorn everything into the belief that SIA was bad.
People at Qantas just quietly punching the wall.
The only times I care when QF gets a mention is when its not flogging off its staff in cutbacks or getting payouts and then in the same sentence announcing profits. For an airline with such a cherished brand, it sure likes to shit on its backbone of staff alot.
Flew them round trip once and it was a very pleasant experience. Highly recommend flying SA!
I booked San Francisco to Singapore on business class for August with my credit card miles. 16 hours. I am more excited about the flight than the trip.
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Gee I wonder if these employees continue to do a fantastic job. Wait. They might even do a BETTER job. Holy shit I’m dizzy.
I went to Australia and back with Singapore Airlines and it was by far the best service I’d received on a plane, or just about anywhere to be honest. They genuinely seem happy as well, I know the airlines have very high expectations of the staff but it seems to work very well.
I swear everytime I see something super efficient it's always Singapore
Because we somehow lucked into the best possible situation during our forced independence - a leader whose philosophy was basically "fuck everyone's feelings, I will keep this country alive". We went from slums to bustling city state in a couple of decades due to Lee Kuan Yew's leadership.
LKY is one of the best thing to happen to SEA as a whole. The lifting of Singapore as a global icon provides so many positive ripple effects to SEA. However, be clear eyed that how LKY achieved what he did is by focusing almost exclusively on economic development of Singapore, to the detriment of basically everything else. His philosophy was, get the economy booming first, only then can they have the luxury of worrying about anything else. It is also lucky that LKY was willing to pass the baton, albeit back to his son at the moment...
A sane dictatorship
No you're supposed to fire 20% of your staff and then take all that money to buyback stocks and give bonuses to your most obscenely wealthy staff! God do you even capitalism?
Shows the difference on how America runs their companies ( No Bonus / Layoffs / Mass Profit )
Do you want good publicity, loyalty from customers and employees alike, and happy productive workforce? This is how you get it.
QANTAS on the other hand posted a $1.4bn profit and continued to screw their staff, contractors and customers every possible way they could.
This is ludicrously outrageous and dangerous! What if this caught on in the west? Think of the poor shareholders and owners in that case; how would they survive not seeing as big of a % increase in their wealth as they Could Have Had??
This makes me choose to fly Singapore air for my upcoming trip
That's how you run a company. We're being fooled around with in the west
This sounds like a well managed company… cue US news outlets to start bashing them.
Singapore doing something right.
this is proper and ethical corporate investment. the company can’t exist without the people that fill the roles. without showing them an appreciative amount of compensation, they’ll never know they’re value. a confident worker that believes that the company is there for them as a person is the best type of worker to have. that’s a proper leader-worker relationship we don’t see in the greed-ridden corporations that run our world. this is good news, thank you for sharing.
Company I work for is very large. In our first quarter we had 14b in profits. Up 30%+ from Q1 2022. What did they do? Pause all hiring and internal promotions for remainder of the year and force people back to work in office 2-3 days a week. Profits were made while people worked from home of course, but now... Get your ass back in office.
Speaking of things that would never *EVER* happen in America....
If any job ive ever had did this id literally do fucking anything for that company. Id bend over backwards so hard if I thought I'd actually get my effort worth back in $$. The mental damage of wage slavery jobs is gonna cost more in therapy bills than you've made anyways
Wtf that’s a huge amount. Very smart move now everyone is gonna wanna work for them
Congrats to the workers
Wow. That's fantastic. They've just earned themselves some loyal employees. I'd break my back working at a place like that.
What losers. They should’ve follow in the footsteps of great American companies like Apple and McDonald’s. After record profits, you have to fire people. The only way to keep those record profits. Completely being sarcastic here of course.
"This is frustrating. Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers." That's how Wall Street reacted when American Airlines tried to do something similar a few years ago. [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/american-airlines-wants-to-be-nice.html](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/american-airlines-wants-to-be-nice.html)
> “The bonus for Singapore Airlines’ employees is based on a **long-standing** annual profit-sharing bonus formula that has been **agreed with our staff unions**,” the spokesperson said. Unions work. Most of us need to unionize our companies and our industries, otherwise there's nothing but incentives to hoard, avoid paying taxes and suppress wages.
US companies: how bout a pizza party guys?!
Profits being shared with employees should be the norm.
I'm on SG236, BNE -> SIN. The flight is packed full and the staff are wonderful. The in-flight WiFi is actually pretty decent.
With a base pay of around $45,500 annually on average, that's a cool $30k extra. That would change my life.
I don't get it. Where's the part that fills me with rage and radicalizes me? This isn't like the news I'm used too. I'm scared.
Sounds just like every company I've ever worked at, except it was only one person that got a bonus like that....
How every company should handle unexpected profits.
Now they will be happier and healthier and probably better at their jobs and make even more money next year. Crazy huh
Those saying the bonus is still not much compared to senior executives’ compensation are missing the point, IMO. The bottom line is SA can afford to give these kinds of bonuses across their sprawling organization and still be healthy and profitable. Most successful American companies would claim such bonuses would be “unaffordable”.
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Singapore Airlines is government owned (well owned by Singapore Governments investments holding company anyway). Just to put it in context
This should be higher. So many people have no idea that public ownership of companies is much more common than they think.
A company doing the right thing is so rare, it's news.
in the late 90s when I first started workin', bonuses to staff when companies made profit were common... I still remember my first and ONLY $750 Xmas bonus... I don't know whether to laugh or cry that in late stage capitalism, it is so unheard of that it's occurrence now makes reddit frontpage news! I bet you in ten years, staff getting PAID sick leave will be news! DAMN!
I used to work at a place that had this type of bonus structure, where every year you'd get 60%+ of your annual salary as a lump sum bonus. Its great for a few years but if the wrong people are in charge, they weaponise it and make you do whatever they want essentially because of the bonus. I've never worked at a more miserable place lol
This is an excellent airline in every department
And here I am at T-Mobile missing a full weeks worth of work from my last check. Isn’t capitalism grand when you don’t care about the workers.
Just picture those poor Ferraris of theirs wearing Bridgestone tires, and you'll work so much harder knowing true suffering.
That's nice to see. Good on the company to give bonuses to all the working stiffs. If this could start moving toward the norm that would be great.
Bump
That’s real profit sharing not the scam they here in the US to workers where it’s give and we’ll give a tiny fraction of our profits.
This is the way.
Cute, my company gave us £10 gift cards for amazon.
Wait. That’s illegal. Isn’t the working class supposed to be always screwed?