Moto suspends 401 (k) contributions, freezes salaries, cuts CEOs' pays by 25%

As "About to start my life at Moto" said how did occur? I remember King Moto from the late 80''s with a world work force of 240000 people, a company that lead technology. There must have been the crew of Titantic at the helm for the last couple of decades. Are they being held accountable? I also agree that many companies are decaying by chasing immediate profits at the expense of long-term planning. Also, I feel that it has hurt us by the US allowing trade to become a one way street coming in. As a father of 3, I know I want my paycheck, and with that being dangled over my head I would tend to chose that carrot in the short term but in the long term are would it be better for Motorola to maintain competetive benefits and cut more positions. Should we concede to losing our pension/401K matching benefits as the norm? I know Motorola wants to retain talent, but cutting benefits like that will have engineers avoiding them like the plague after this economic cycle recovers.

A CEO lover mentioned below about a $1 salary, which I bet received a $1 million bonus for doing poorly.

Hi guys...are you insane?? First of all: you complain about outsorcing? YOU invented the game rules... YOU invented "globalization" and worst of all and parent of all your ruins, YOU invented STOCKs!!(and EPS , and ever growing profit !!!) Dont you understand that this crisis was caused just by a dozen of brillant guru's from wall street??? why dont you get them and make them pay back???

If I hear one more person say "we are in a comopetitive world"... As I look back over my 20 plus yrs of service to America corporations, I worked long hours, did everything asked of me, completed assignments within budget and ahead of schedule, yet my compensation grew smaller and smaller each year, but outsourcing, so Mgm't could get their huge salaries and bonuses, caused me to lose my job. I'm mad because the "mass" is again paying the price for the greedy execs and now the US is suffering from this greed. Just look at Goldman-Sachs, they made over 2 billion last year and then moved their money offshore and only has to pay 1% in taxes this year. Now they are asking for a tax payer rescue. GREED!

Job Cuts and Pay cuts is nothing but the punishment to most of the employees for the mistakes done by very few employees. Despite any economic conditions, rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. So there is always a business oppurtunity to get success and money

What is point of freezing salaries and cutting benefits if the overpaid C-level execs are perceived as incompetent? It doesn't matter if the C-level execs take a voluntary pay cut or not, or if the entire workforce is handed a compensation cut. If the company cannot turn around, everybody is going to take a 100% pay cut. An inspiring leader can marshal his co-workers, and potentially get the balance sheet to black again. Question is are Brown and Jha the right people for the task?

Man, despite the news about Moto''s paycuts, I am very grateful to be offered a job at all. Ultimately, if we are still getting a paycheck at the end of two weeks, we should be able to ride out this storm. But man, how did we get ourselves into this mess??

What role did Karl Icahn play in this ?

As a Motorolan I am contractually forbidden from discussing how I feel about the leadership. In my career, I have never seen a company so bent on reducing the quality of employee benefits. My philosophy is "One cannot ''save'' your way to financial stability". Motorola has massive human resources but squanders most of it with internal inefficiencies to the point that products are missing their window of opportunity. At least Motorola management is not suicidally self-destructive like Yahoo.

It''s about time that CEO''s took a hit too, particularly if they have been with the company a long time and created the problem. It burns me up inside to watch CEO''s take away massive compensation packages whether the company is doing well or not - if times are good, they demand an exhorbitant compensation package for driving company growth

I like seeing leadership take the cut 1st. Sets an example. It is a world economy and we need to stay competitive as others have said.

Necessary, but insufficient. More layoffs to come.

We''re in a world economy - it''s competitive. Our local economy is getting more competitive. We need to quit complaining, roll up our sleeves and get to work. Otherwise we''ll lose on both fronts. For those of us that still have jobs, we need to help our neighbors beyond what most of us are used to - it''s a whole lot more effective than expecting the government to do it at tax payer expense. We have all the resources we need right here in the USA to be a great nation. The question is, "Do we have the will to do it?"

Welcome to the world of the salaried workforce at the Big Three. We have had salaried freezes, executive compansation cuts and bonus elimination, 401K matching elimination, salary freezes,pension freezes, health care cuts for the past few years. In addition to severe headcount reductions. But you wouldn't know it by how the media is playing out the Big Three Loan Request. Guess they will have to go into bankruptcy to straighten the poor management and overpaid work force too!

Let''s look at this another way, they aren''t losing ALL benefits, only the "extra" benefits of the 401(k)and a salary freeze. They apparently still have the medical benefits and others not mentioned (paid time off such as vacation time?). While losing these benefits is not pleasing, not having a regular pay check is FAR LESS pleasing! Hopefully, they will come back when this is all over.

no pay raises is nothing new. low employee morale? puhleez. they are lucky to have a job. It's a free country, leave if you think you can find something better. CEO pay level cuts are nothing new either. I know of a CEO that took $1 salary for over a year. On the other hand, so what about the car companies doing massive layoffs. The government isn't bailing out all companies such as moto. The requirement for the bailout is that all executive officers of a company should be for them to take a salary cut.

I have always considered a 10% pay cut more manageable than a 100% pay cut.

being a Motorolan I can say it would be nice to still have the perks that were just taken away "temporarily" but the alternative might be more layoffs and that would be much worse.

CEO paycuts should always be the first line of defense.

Until the joke called H-1B is put under control and outsourcing to other countries stopped this diminishment of the worker will continue. Corporate America goes for the quick $$. The Top Corp players make out with their bonus'' and stock options and could care less for the future of the company or it''s employees. The squeeze on the worker is being seen now that our consumer driven economy is in the toilet. My biggest fear is yet to be seen, what happens in 20-30 years when all these people whos pension stopped growing in 2008 and had their contributions to their (killed in 2008 by the stock market) 401K halved because the companies wanted to remain "competetive"? They will have very little to rely on. On that note, I say its high time that all government workers get the same treatment as us public sector foks. Why should a teacher enjoy being able to retire at 57 with full pay AND cost of living benefits? Its time for Americans to stand up collectivly and demand that the sell out of this country stops NOW!

Are they saying, we are taking away all your benefits so whoever can find another job can leave instead of layoff.