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Bankers should be paid bonus.

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tonywiltshire | 12:26 Fri 18th Nov 2011 | Business & Finance
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If Bankers have in their Contract of Employment that they will receive a bonus when XXX target reached, and they reach that target what are their employers supposed to do? Refuse payment and be taken to an Industrial Tribunal, which they will probably lose or comply with their Contract of Employment?
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Change the contracts.
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ummmm. Both sides have to agree.
"Bankers should be paid bonus."

I agree Tony. People seem to be heaping all the blame on the bankers. But personal debt is still a huge un-addressed problem. The total UK personal debt is £1.46 TRILLION (roughly around £8,900 per UK household) - this is a politically sensitive issue and not exactly a vote winner so it is unlikely to be resolved (in the same way we need to reform the pension system and old-age care needs to be spun off from the NHS proper - neither will be done because of lack of political payoff in doing so)
Get rid of the people who gave them such contracts
I think you miss the point. It is not the responsibility of the the employee but of the employer.

The banks received millions if not billions of tax payers money to ensure their survival. We now are paying the price however the banks, who still owe billions to us, say they are making profit and paying on it.

No doubt in a year Northern rock will be paying huge bonuses whilst we have taken a £500m bath.
Ed - Then we should ban credit cards (which ain't gonna happen), and people should live within thier means. Personal debt didn't cause this crisis and why are the government encouraging us to spend more.
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It is not all the fault of Bankers.
I know personal debt is a major problem and do not see how legislation can control this, it is personal control problem which people are not encouraged to follow the only control is to make it harder to obtain credit and then the economy suffers.
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How do you get rid of people who agreed to the contracts, just sack them?

Borrowing too much on property, without the means to repay, was a major contributing factor, particularly in the USA, of the problems.
//Both sides have to agree.//

No they don't "reasonable changes" to contracts can be made

changing bonuses to reflect long term results and not short term gambling wins is entirely reasonable.

//It's not the bankers fault if people want the money//

next you'll be telling me it's not the fault of drug pushers if people want heroin.

Selling credit to people with no capacity to repay recklessly endangers the banks and drove Leahman Brothers out of business.

If you were running a bank and a trader leant $1 million to the first person who came up tohim withuot looking into whether he could repay it would you give him the sack or a bonus?

Seriously Tony you're trying to defend business practices which are simply indefensible
"But personal debt is still a huge un-addressed problem. The total UK personal debt is £1.46 TRILLION (roughly around £8,900 per UK household)"
It may well be, but that's not at all pertinent to the question.
If I owe a few thousand, it's inconvenient for me, but it's not going to call the collapse of the world economy. The bankers are largely responsible for that, but you and I are paying the price, while the bankers are paying themselves huge bonuses for (in many cases) gambling with other people's money, an failing.

Who do you think is more valuable to society: A teacher, a nurse, Stephen Hawking, or some guy who gambles on the failure of a particular company or country?
AB, it's what i said before, that people are their own worse enemies, heap blame entirely on the bankers, banking system, meanwhile living way beyond their own means, it's called personal responsibility.
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Sorry J-T-P you are wrong, look at this ACAS statement.
If, after negotiation, agreement on a variation of contract has proved
to be impossible, an employer can terminate the original contract, with
proper notice, and offer a new contract to the employee, including the
revised terms. There will be no breach of contract as a result of taking
such action. If the employee accepts the new contract, continuity is
preserved.
• Proper notice will be as specified (or implied) in the employee’s contract,
or the minimum statutory notice period, whichever is the longer.
• Under the law the termination will be regarded as a dismissal and it will be
open to all eligible employees to claim unfair dismissal before an
employment tribunal.
In jobs I have been in contracts get changed regardless of what the employee wants. Always some loophole. A re-org to claim your job doesn't exist an more but if you want to stay you can take this one, seems favourite.

Wasn't there some fuss about pensions laetely ? Public employers and private companies getting the contract changed whether both sides were happy or not ?

But in any case, a contract that offers unreasonable bonus payments without taking into consideration other aspects, was a dodgy one anyway. I'm not saying the devil looks after their own but it sure seems that way sometimes.
Of course any contractually agreed bonus arrangments have to be honoured. As a political gesture the government can apply a 'bankers' bonus tax (although I'm not totally convinced at the merits of this).
But I think the real issue that concerns people is that to many people the bonus arrangements seem flawed- too generous and rewarding failure- and so companies should be forced to overhaul their schemes, and shareholders should demand more say in the issue.
Of course not all bonuses go to 'fat cats'- hard working bank clerks, call centre staff etc receive them too. I once worked for a bank which introduced bonuses for meeting targets - but it then froze base pay for several years so staff needed the bonus just to get by.
We can't ban bonuses altogether- many organisations see the benefits of incentivising staff to meet or beat targets.
As far as Northern Rock staff are concerned it's up to Richard Branson what sort of bonuses he offers- and I think he will probably make good decisions on this.
If a company is contractually forced to pay a bonus but can't afford it, it can get round it by freezing basic pay
If I was contractually entitled to a bonus on achieving a target, and was denied it for no other reason than other people didn't like it, I'd have my employer in front of a tribunal quicker than than the trots after a Lloyd Grossman Korma.
True. If only the people owned the bank they could decide what was fair. But what are the chances of that ever happening ?
Don't the shareholders have a say? In RBS/NatWest where the government is a shareholder I assume the governemnet as a shareholder has a pretty big say. Does anyone know?
Remember shareholders, when they agree bonus schemes, are looking for remuneration arrangements that will maximise the profitability and shareholders' return by boosting earnings and improving efficiency. The extra cost of bonuses should be outweighed buy other benefits so they should more than pay for themselves. It's not the shareholders' job to seek to redistribute income and make staff less well off
Both sides DO have to agree. A disaffected banker doesn't HAVE to accept the revised contract but can decide to walk. He can probably afford to, and might be welcomed elsewhere in an economy where there's less contradictory government interference
Intrigued to know if anyone has actually checked the £1.46 trillion debt number, if that's £8900 for every family in Britain, then there are over 164 million families in the country. If we assume 60 million people in the UK and a family being 4 people then that's a debt of £97000 per family. Methinks someone is exaggerating somewhere
My employers didn't honour the contract I have with them so why should banks? Everyone else is being hammered due to the financial industries mistakes except those that led us into this mess

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