Company shares $9 million with employees

[IDemo]

Source: Associated Press

updated 4:19 p.m. MT, Fri., March. 6, 2009

DENVER - Eleven-year FreeWave Technologies Inc. employee Melanie Duran says the wireless data radio maker is a great place to work. But you can judge for yourself.

The Boulder-based company says it has had profits every month since it hired its first employee in 1995. There have been no layoffs. Employees get company-funded retirement plans and bonuses based on profits and growth.

And there's more: As part of a $113 million private-equity investment deal in 2007, FreeWave is sharing $9 million of investors' money with its fewer than 100 employees as a reward for the company's success. Shares are divvied up based on individual performance. FreeWave refused to disclose individual payments.

The $9 million, for eligible employees who were with FreeWave when it won the investment, has been paid out in three installments. Company founders Steve Wulchin and Jonathan Sawyer are handing out the last payments Thursday.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29555727 /

[imdjh]

1. Sounds good

Meanwhile, Hershey is moving its Peppermint Patty factory to Monterrey Mexico even though the company has made money hand over fist for decades. What would you suppose is the labor cost in a candy bar? One cent? I'd really like to know.

[BanzaiBonnie]

2. No more York's pepperment patties for us

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. None for me either and I really love them!

[valerief]

3. All my Hersheys go down the toilet from now on. nt

[Psephos]

7. Why not start a Hershey's thread instead of diverting this one? n/t

[imdjh]

10. I assumed that there had already been one

.... and that this was simply a relevant comment.

[superconnected]

5. I see the profits divided up at my current company and after management takes the giant cut the

employees who do all the work get a tiny amount. IE, when I got $800 my manager got $5000, his manager got 50k. There are 23 people working in my office divy-ing our portion of the profits. The profits of course are from the work me and the other few peons did. I was hired at a lower pay than I contracted to them at because they said I would get an average of $6000 in profits divided out each year. My co-worker did explain to me that he never saw much of it and the management was who would take it. Well now that I'm full time perm, I'm not seeing that 6k either. I went to a party Thursday because we were 150 percent over our profit objective for last quarter.

So I know how that company is actually going to divide that money. It pretty much says it in the article.

And yeah, they ought to be creating new jobs with it.

[grace0418]

8. At my company, everything went to the CEO. And when profits weren't quite as

high as the year before (but he still made millions, of course), it was time to get rid of a whole slew of people. Of course, now there's no one left to actually design the stuff he made so many millions from selling, so I guess he'll figure out his mistake sooner or later. Meanwhile, we're all unemployed.

[Selatius]

11. It's a great way to demotivate workers and throttle productivity.

In companies where employees are the primary shareholders, such as in corporations with ESOPs (employee stock ownership programs) or even a labor co-op where each worker gets one vote, at least the workers have a say in how the profits are divvied up. With traditional corporations, your average worker has very little say, unless he happens to own a large percentage of the company.

[grace0418]

14. The guy could write a book on how to demotivate workers and throttle productivity.

How about the fact that the entire creative department was housed in an area of the building with no windows, buzzing fluorescent lights, grey walls/floors/cubes, filthy carpeting and bathrooms and no storage for all our supplies? Yet we were supposed to be constantly coming up with new, beautiful, wonderful products for him to sell. Oh, yeah, and we were supposed to be doing "trend research" all the time but the company blocked 80% of the websites we needed to visit.

[Lorien]

12. Sounds like a lot of my corporate clients over the past few years

the BushCo years brought out the stupid and greedy in so many CEOs.

[grace0418]

15. I don't know whether he is greedier or more stupid, but he's got both in spades.

And he'll never pay the price, just his employees. If the company shut down tomorrow he'd still be a multi-millionaire.

[gratuitous]

6. Rampant socialism!

How can they possibly expect to compete in the free market if they're not shoveling money as fast as they can into the overstuffed pockets of a select few people?

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. So? Merril-Lynch shared $3600 million with its employees.

Who shall remain unnamed because of the "irreparable harm" which could come from naming him, err... I mean "them".

[Lost in CT]

13. You beat me to it.... nt

[No Elephants]

16. At least these bonuses were not taxpayer funded.