So now we know. A pay cut isn’t really a pay cut at all. It’s an ‘efficiency initiative’.
Wynn is just one of a long line of gaming operators in Las Vegas and Macau that has had to ask its staff either to take a pay cut or take unpaid leave in order to save their jobs during the current economic gloom. Wynn probably wins the prize though for dressing up the bad news in the best bit of corporate double speak.
The ‘initiatives’ announced last week by Wynn include reductions in pay for all salaried employees in Las Vegas, reduced work weeks for full-time hourly employees, the elimination of 2009 bonus accruals and a suspension of the employer match to employees’ retirement fund contributions. Wynn said the move along with other operational cuts would save approximately US$75 million to US$100 million annually.
The company probably had especial need to put the best possible spin on bad news, given that only weeks before its staff were ‘initiated’ into their fresh ‘efficiency’, their boss Steve Wynn went on record saying a financial crisis was no time for spending cuts.
“If I start compromising, what happens? Word gets around. It’s viral. That’s why this is a dangerous time.”
AGI acknowledges that the hunt for inconsistencies in public statements made by the great and the good can sometimes seem like the sign of puerile journalistic minds not versed in the tough decisions needed when running a large public corporation.
Then again, the exposure of such inconsistencies may also be a timely reminder that chief executives and chairmen are not gurus or high priests, but men and women. If more financial commentators had remembered that during the pumping up of the world’s credit-fuelled asset bubble, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this mess.
