Merc managers suing for back bonuses

**Mark75H** · 11-13-2009, 08:02 AM

Don't know if this was posted before, but it didn't come up when I searched for it:

http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/59739832.html

A very good way to loose the confidence of your team and bleed talent

I bet they end up paying their lawyers more than the bonus money whether they win or loose. Frankly I hope they loose, I have no sympathy for people who try to cheat their employees, no matter how high up.

**groundloop** · 11-13-2009, 10:35 AM

I'd read a little while ago that they wanted to close the Fond du Lac plant anyway, so they're pulling heavy handed crap. They tried getting it written into a new contract that they could cut the pay of workers recalled from a layoff something like 30%, and naturally the workers wouldn't agree to that which gave them the excuse they were looking for to close that plant.

Sounds like Mercury Marine and their parent company (Brunswick) are equal opportunity a$$holes, they'll screw over both management and assembly-line workers.

**sho305** · 11-13-2009, 04:32 PM

They might have learned how to do that over the last couple decades by watching Michigan. They can't stay in business, it will happen no matter what way a company handles it and it is obvious closing plants is the preferred way. Take a look at Indiana and the RV business, those guys know the routine they board the windows the second they find out the economy is tanking but it comes back for them because you can't easily build big trailers out of country. Nobody ever thought GM would be able to cut pay either, but they did and it took bankruptcy to do it in that case.

If it can be done in China or Mexico your job is history or your company will be, have no doubts about it. Cars, motors, all that stuff will go away if things don't change.

**mk30h** · 11-13-2009, 09:57 PM

This is a good way to start a rapid decline in your product development and quality. Too many accountants at Brunswick, no loyalty except to the bottom line. That has been the American way for 30 years, and now the results are clear. Good way to drive an entire economy into a toilet with no stop valve.
The Japanese at least have some sense of the longterm and build customer and employee loyalty. I think my next engine will likey be a Yammie, similar dedication to quality that Merc once had before Brunswick.

**Stitch King** · 11-13-2009, 09:59 PM

Ok so the managers are pissed because they did not get bonuses for doing their job (getting cost reductions) in the first place.

I don't have much sympathy on this topic, because getting cost reductions is my job day in and day out. If I don't get the prices down I get to be unemployed. Not sure why these guys are entitled to a bonus for doing what they should be doing for their company in the first place.

Yep they had a deal, but if the company is not paying ANY bonuses because of not being profitable, that's business.

Likely the managers who got the cost reductions bundled up the work and sent it to India or China for those reductions anhow. I have to fight the "Send it to LCC" (Low Cost Country) mentality every day so I definitely don't feel for uncreative managers only looking for a short term reward. I'd bet a month's pay that not one of those clowns did anything other than send the work to LCC's.

So the work was sent overseas, and the American workers are laid off and don't have the money to buy boats and engines. No wonder Mercury was not profitable.

I hope they don't get a cent.