Staff bawled and whistled at executives of Alcatel-Lucent at the group's annual general meeting on Friday in protest against job cuts and what they said were exorbitant management pay packages.
Telecoms equipment providers Alcatel and Lucent, which merged on December 1, are cutting 1,468 jobs in France as part of a bigger global reduction in staff than expected. "These job cuts are sapping the teams' energy ... and weakening the research and development potential of France and Europe," said Jean-Baptiste Triquet from the CFDT union.
"While you are giving yourselves these exorbitant remunerations, you say our salaries are too high," he added. Investor advisory firm Proxinvest and investment fund Phitrust Active Investors have joined the ranks of shareholders angered by the pay package of former Alcatel boss Serge Tchuruk, who was awarded 5.765 million euros ($7.75 million) last year as he moved from chief executive of Alcatel to chairman of the merged group.
The payment took his total remuneration for 2006 to 8.2 million euros, including a salary of 1.397 million euros and a bonus of 1.1 million euros. "In the current context, it would have been more intelligent and legitimate to submit this (5.765-million-euro) payment to shareholder vote," said Luis de Lozada from Phitrust.
Tchuruk's award, equivalent to the total of his best two years' remuneration, was negotiated in 1995 when he joined Alcatel, before a 2005 law that required such payments be put to a shareholder vote. "The award I received in November 2006 is the strict implementation of my contract," Tchuruk told French daily Le Figaro in an interview published on Friday.
Proxinvest recommended shareholders torpedo a resolution on the "golden parachute" of Alcatel-Lucent Chief Executive Pat Russo, which includes two years' worth of salary and bonus. Union members whistled, shouted and sang during the management presentation, at times making it impossible to hear, as they chanted refrains such as "Russo give me a job!"
Protests over executive pay have mounted in recent years as companies have had to improve the disclosure of pay packages with the adoption of international accounting standards. Former EADS co-chief executive Noel Forgeard has come under fire for receiving a 8.5-million-euro golden parachute after being ousted from the parent of Airbus. France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has called for such payments to be banned.