Bankrupt PG&E seeks to give out bonuses? That's rich

[TexasTowelie]

Is Pacific Gas & Electric trying to make its already-tattered reputation even worse? That’s the only possible reaction to this week’s Bay Area News Group report that the giant investor-owned utility has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco for permission to give at least $235 million in bonuses this year to about 10,000 employees.

Coming off a decade in which PG&E has been repeatedly found at fault for deadly disasters and been judged to be a corporate felon by a U.S. federal court for its horrible safety record with pipelines in the Bay Area, this is hard to fathom. The optics are even worse when considering the likelihood that the utility will ask state taxpayers to pay for damages from wildfires blamed on PG&E’s equipment.

PG&E executives say they need to offer the bonuses to retain key employees as it works through bankruptcy. But if these executives would get the bonuses they defend, they have no credibility. Much like the utility they work for.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/story/2019-03-29/bankrupt-pg-e-seeks-to-give-out-bonuses-thats-rich
(no more at link)

[kimbutgar]

1. Recently it was a rainy stormy night

Outside my window at 1 am a PG&E guy was on a chair ladder trying to fix a line that had come undone. That is the guy who should receive a bonus not some pencil pusher in a cushy office.