PG&E asked the bankruptcy judge to approve bonuses to its employees totaling $130 million. We objected, arguing that “every dollar PG&E pays out to its executives in bonuses is a dollar the victims who were burned out by those executives don’t get.”
While sympathetic to our argument, the bankruptcy judge ruled that, under the controlling bankruptcy law, he had no alternative but to approve PG&E’s request.
Now, buckling to pressure from the Northern California Fire Lawyers as well as from the victims themselves, PG&E has decided not to pay those bonuses after all. As reported in the Sacramento Bee, PG&E’s interim CEO acknowledges that not paying the bonuses may cause a hardship on PG&E employees, “But we believe as a whole that the hardships on others are in many cases significantly greater.”
Ya think?