Free Republic

<p>Food maker has to lay off 6,000 workers and close 20 plants, but execs still got paid big bonuses.</p> <p>CHICAGO (Reuters) - Bonuses totaling more than $10 million were paid out to five Kraft Foods Inc. executives at the end of 2003, even as the giant food maker made plans to lay off thousands of workers.</p>

AT&T Wireless calls it a performance bonus. Employees call it the shaft. Despite a stock valuation that's still a fraction of its high nearly four years ago and a service record so poor that the Redmond cellular company recently lost more subscribers than any other cellular provider, executives at AT&T Wireless Services Inc. were given shares worth millions of dollars as performance bonuses last month. That award came a week before they moved to sell the company for a price that renders nearly all the employees' options worthless. The bonuses were paid under a stock-based performance-incentive plan approved by the...