Judge OKs bankrupt PG&E's plan for $235 million in bonuses

So, we’re still giving big bonuses to bad people? And where is that money coming from? Tax payers, as usual? Who are those 10,000 employees and why should they be rewarded with bonuses?

Judge OKs bankrupt PG&E's plan for $235 million in bonuses

A federal judge approved Pacific Gas & Electric Corp.'s plans Tuesday to pay $235 million in employee bonuses this year, despite the California utility's bankruptcy and objections from lawyers of victims of the state's massive wildfires.

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Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said the payments would be heavily weighted toward achieving safety goals and were needed to promote stability in its workforce amid the chaos surrounding the company. The payments will not go to senior management but be given to about 10,000 rank-and-file employees, the newspaper reported.

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The utility has been blamed for more than a dozen of California's most destructive wildfires in the past two years. A November fire that essentially wiped out the Northern California town of Paradise was the deadliest and most destructive in state history.

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Tuesday's decision came a day after PG&E asked state regulators for another increase in rates and profits, saying it was needed to attract investment as the utility goes through bankruptcy. That request and a previous one could result in average household bills rising more than $22 a month for electricity and natural gas.

https://apple.news/Adpmwu0coQtO-Vr07_2rymg

This is insane. The state’s streets are literally covered in crap due to all the homeless on the streets. Newsome wants to pay for college for all the undocumented people moving into the state. The state is still dumping money into that loser bullet train.

Will prisoners who had to fight those fires for $2.00 an hour going to get a bonus too?

The Top Four Reasons California Is Unsustainable

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdelbeccaro/2018/04/19/the-top-four-re...

Simply amazing.

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snoopydawg's picture

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said the payments would be heavily weighted toward achieving safety goals and were needed to promote stability in its workforce amid the chaos surrounding the company

This was cancelled out when they said this:

Tuesday's decision came a day after PG&E asked state regulators for another increase in rates and profits, saying it was needed to attract investment as the utility goes through bankruptcy.

I don't know if California can legally do it, but they should privatize them and keep their money. We are experiencing the retail store apocalypse after they were loaded up with debts and the shareholders took the profits and screwed their employees out of their pensions and life and health insurances. That judges approved these deals just further shows that we are a banana republic and the corruption is so deep we'll need a flame thrower to burn it out!

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

detroitmechworks's picture

They can look at all of the options, weigh them carefully, and then make whatever rationalizations are necessary to continue paying money to rich assholes... for social justice and investment of course...

As long as they can build their invisible walls, they'll keep it up. As long as the pigs can be speed summoned in the rich areas, there will never be any complaints about any of their "help". Until the first time somebody rich calls and nobody comes of course. Then you'll see them change to defending their own families, and calls against the "terrorists" and "Criminals" ramp up to levels you've never seen. And if you think the Dems won't fall for it when they're threatened... I remember 9/11.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

It's because neoliberals rule, that's why. D Values public taxation for private profiteers, always and forever. Reactionary CalFire immediately got busy clear cutting everything they could get away with, as cheaply as possible. fuck those guys Hack and wack, mow and blow. Leaders double dipping in ye olde pension poole is also why things fall apart. no innocents

Meanwhile the Obummer guy who is supposed to be representing me LOL! He is going around blathering stuff like: “They’re like TED Talks for emergency managers”. You can hear the last of our safety net shredding to pieces. thoughts and prayers

FEMA PrepTalks in Santa Rosa emphasizes individual need for disaster preparation

Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore paused his pacing and let the words on the screen above him in the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts bring home his message about emergency preparedness and disaster response.

“WAKE UP,” said the top line of Gore’s slide, followed by “WAKE UP OTHERS” and “STAY WOKE.”

Preparing to react to the next flood, wildfire or earthquake — and sharing plans with residents — are the vital steps local government officials must take in disaster-prone areas like Northern California, Gore told dozens of emergency officials Tuesday at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Santa Rosa PrepTalks event.

Prepare to be abandoned, preyed upon, and gentrified to death. up your diaspora

“Normal restoration, we call dating,” quipped Sonoma County Supervisor and water agency Director James Gore. “This is marriage.”

Vineyard owner Rhonda Carano said she’s been able to witness the amazing life cycle of steelhead trout and salmon from some of the 24 vineyards she and her late husband, Don, developed along Dry Creek and the Russian River.

Carano said participating in restoration projects like the one celebrated Monday is just part of trying to farm sustainably, with a conscious eye toward protecting the earth.

But first it must be utterly destroyed by the private industrialists, Nobody cares about that fact. D-Values: bailout every free market failure with public money. Our brand is crisis. argh

Work to continue on second half of Dry Creek restoration

“Normal restoration, we call dating,” quipped Sonoma County Supervisor and water agency Director James Gore. “This is marriage.”

Marriage! Public money funding private property owners. Why? So rich people can enjoy it after everyone else is either enslaved or dead. woo hoo It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here.

Sonoma County lost 3,300 people after 2017 wildfires
And we still have more than 3,000 homeless, Obamaville tent cities everywhere. huh Gilded wine-grapes are good for you. brawndo!

Their departures were partly offset by the arrival of immigrants: Sonoma County gained 1,052 people from other countries. After factoring in deaths and births, the county’s population fell by 2,207 people, the state estimated.

The Census Bureau data, released last week, indicates the county’s population declined by 3,300 people in the same period, leaving the county with a total of 499,942 residents.

The Census Bureau and state Department of Finance use different but related techniques to estimate population dynamics, said Robert Eyler, an economics professor at Sonoma State University.

Both arrived at the same conclusion: a drop in population that he called “alarming.”

ding
I could go on and on with more graft stories, more collapse denial, but why not just kill me now? Now now. go in peace I'm just cranky 'cause yesterday is was triple digits on the deck for the second day in a row. From soggy to desiccated in ten days, that was fast. There is a ton of garbage along the river already and it is not even summer yet. move along

forget it jake, its chinatown
oink

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The Aspie Corner's picture

Having said that, right-of-a-cliff Repig reactionaries and their center-right Democrat enablers will still use the same old tired tactic of whining about how it's all soshlizum's fault.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

EdMass's picture

In CA employment governing rules are different than most of the rest of the county.

Part of that is one's salary and bonus are considered, by law, as one's total income expectation.

So, if an employee was not specifically responsible for the "incident" they cannot be denied their total compensation if they met their individual written goals to achieve the bonus. "Safety" as a category is amorphous and impossible to measure if not explicitly spelled out in detail so not considered in the calculation.

PG&E has to pay the bonuses, otherwise they would be violating CA law. Ergo the Judge's ruling.

It's never simple. Welcome to Lake Woebegone CA "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average"...

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

with bonuses in 2008 and I don't understand it now. You earn a bonus by going above and beyond and, because of your efforts, the company did well. A company that is bankrupt didn't do well.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@HenryAWallace

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

EdMass's picture

@HenryAWallace

One does not "earn" a bonus by "going above and beyond". One earns a bonus by achieving the written and agreed to criteria in one's employment or union agreement and yearly setting of specific goals.

By "going above and beyond" one gets their agreed bonus and usually more $$ (at management's discretion) or stock awards, President's Club, etc.

BTW, companies going bankrupt often pay employees extra $$ to not leave so they can attempt to get out of bankruptcy. (e.g. see the US Auto Industry)

As I noted upthread, PG&E had to pay the bonuses, because it's CA law. Right or wrong, CA residents should take it up with their Legislature for all the good that will do.

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

Cassiodorus's picture

Paradise CA destroyed

85 people dead

PG&E at fault

Yay! Let's give 'em bonuses.

Substitute "PG&E" for "Homer Simpson":

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"I'm starting to believe that they want Donald Trump to get elected." -- Compton Jay

hecate's picture

of the workers I witnessed up here deserve bonuses. I hope they get them.

As for this:

The state’s streets are literally covered in crap due to all the homeless on the streets. Newsome [sic] wants to pay for college for all the undocumented people moving into the state. The state is still dumping money into that loser bullet train.

Those words clearly come from RedState, or some similar Cro-Magnon forum, and so I assume they were included in error. Likewise the link to the Forbes freak, weeping that "California is moving ever farther left and wants the nation to pay for it."

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@hecate
and every word is true. No one should get one penny of taxpayer money for a ‘bonus’ unless it comes straight out of the pockets of PG&E execs. And apparently you missed a paragraph:

Tuesday's decision came a day after PG&E asked state regulators for another increase in rates and profits, saying it was needed to attract investment as the utility goes through bankruptcy. That request and a previous one could result in average household bills rising more than $22 a month for electricity and natural gas

It’s just another California corporate boondoggle.

The taxpayers have been soaked for decades paying for the malfeasance of corporations and politicians. And California has got a real racket going. It wants handouts for its failures but doesn’t want to have to curb the fiscal tomfooleries of its actions.

I think California should be able to do what it wants but it FIRST needs to keep its greedy, incompetent hands off taxpayer money. Then the entire state can knock itself out paying for its own incompetence and stupidity.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

hecate's picture

@Amanda Matthews
know nothing about this issue. You know nothing about California. And anyone who starts slobbering about the homeless shitting in the streets, undocumented college students, the bullet train, "California moving ever far left," etc., is blowing bilge through the RedState bullhorn. Before you next start moaning about the mote of California's "incompetence and stupidity," perhaps you might first attend to your own beam.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@hecate @hecate
anything about the place, aren’t familar the articles that come out sbout it’s fiscal mismanagement and out-of-control debt. Golly, only someone who lives there could POSSIBLY know about California.

I notice though that you don’t keep your opinions to yourself when it comes to ‘other’ states, towns, and cities. But what would you be if you couldn’t be a hypocrite? And you don’t tell anyone what they can say and what they can’t.

You were in the fires and you're justifiably upset because of your experience. But its affected your ‘judgement’ skills when it comes to the problems in that place. Because nothing I’ve said is untrue and you know it.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

hecate's picture

@Amanda Matthews
you've said is untrue. You're a fountain of falsehood. And you of all people have no right to comment on someone else's judgement.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@hecate
NEENER NEENER NEENER?

No one’s. Impressed. Particularly me because I’ve read your nonsense before.

You will note that you’re posting in an OP full of people sick of California and it’s accompanying garbage. On second thought, maybe you need to have that pointed out to you.

I’ve always found it amusing when people give themselves screen names after mythological deities. Sooo funny! Sooo arrogant! And sooo telling and funny.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

smiley7's picture

@Amanda Matthews

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@smiley7
I represent that remark!!

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

smiley7's picture

@UntimelyRippd
caldron scene; but didn't wish to infer a different meaning than the straight up one i wrote.

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@smiley7

LADY MACBETH
(rubbing her hands) Come out, damned spot! Out, I command you! One, two. OK, it’s time to do it now.—Hell is murky!—Nonsense, my lord, nonsense! You are a soldier, and yet you are afraid? Why should we be scared, when no one can lay the guilt upon us?—But who would have thought the old man would have had so much blood in him?

As I've explained to others -- though I would never claim to be well-steeped in the literature of the theatre -- I consider Macbeth to be the greatest play ever written in the English language. Elsewhere I explained the source of my handle approximately thus:

a brilliant play, a brilliant scene in a brilliant play, a brilliant line in a brilliant scene in a brilliant play, and a strange and extraordinary turn of phrase (that, with no context, can evoke all manner of images -- "Untimely Rippd", hmm ...) in a brilliant line in a brilliant scene in a brilliant play.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

smiley7's picture

@UntimelyRippd

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@smiley7
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

"Signifying nothing" would also be a great handle. Or band name.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

http://ianchadwick.com/blog/sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing/

[video:https://youtu.be/u-Y3KfJs6T0]

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@janis b
for reasons too complex to explain, it breaks my heart now.

time to get out the guitar before bed.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

and memories, even if they're melancholic.

Sweet sensitive dreams.

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smiley7's picture

@hecate
and thought of you. Forgive my jumping in this thread; just want to say hello and 'good speed' with everything.

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hecate's picture

@smiley7
Smiley. Thanks for the good wishes. : )

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snoopydawg's picture

@hecate

People are pooping more than ever on the streets of San Francisco

One of America's wealthiest cities has a huge problem with public poop.

Between 2011 and 2018, San Francisco experienced a massive increase in reported incidents of human feces found on public streets.

In 2011, just over 5,500 reports were logged by the San Francisco Department of Public Works; in 2018, the number increased to more than 28,000.

"I will say there is more feces on the sidewalks than I've ever seen growing up here," San Francisco Mayor London Breed told NBC in a 2018 interview. "That is a huge problem, and we are not just talking about from dogs — we're talking about from humans."

San Francisco has struggled with a feces problem for years. The city even employs a "Poop Patrol" that attempts to keep the streets clean and focuses on the Tenderloin neighborhood.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Right on cue from The Sacramento Bee this morning comes that headline, making me madder. woo hoo

Sorry to all, now I am regretting my rant comment in this essay, again, of course. Any comment where we start punching each other instead of UP toward the greedy bastards in charge of ruining everything is regretful I'd say.

Yes, PGE contractors did a good job replanting miles and miles of wood poles recently, where were they for the maintenance of said lines all the years before? preventative maintenance failure bonus

Yeah I bitched about CalFire hacking down everything they could before the next blazes begin, but what is the alternative when the system grows more insane with every "fix" proposed. I actually remember when PGE workers, not contractors had good union jobs making every line look like an ugly ski slope, nothing growing beneath it, nada. Fire breaks and fire roads used to be maintained and now they are not. County roads aren't even maintained anymore in a lot of poor areas. My cousin from the boomer generation spent his whole career as a geologist for PGE, now he lives on a houseboat in Sausalito. I think he had a good professional job, and now a good retirement. punch higher punch FIRE

California Democrats now enjoy their biggest legislative advantages in decades, with veto-proof majorities in both the Assembly and Senate. Besides a brief stretch from 1995 to 1996 when Republicans had a slim majority in the Assembly, Democrats have had complete control of the Legislature for the last 48 years.

As Democrats have increased their power in the Capitol, they have championed bolder and more progressive policies in the last decade. While Democrats in office praise the changes they’ve made, Republicans worry the state has gone off the rails.

The Sacramento Bee spoke to more than a dozen current and former lawmakers, asking them to reflect on the most left-leaning laws that have come out of Sacramento. Here are some that made our “liberal list”:

That list just enrages me even further, but "That's the system." so relax. No use fighting each other about it, it is eating everything alive from below. Middle class is fearful of course, poor people are dying on the streets mercilessly, and they are next because nobody is left to speak for them. Nobody.

PEACE

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k9disc's picture

I've been catching the shitting in the streets and tent-city-sprawl in the Golden State of late. Seen some images and moving pictures that would make Maduro blush.

Strikes me as the future under Democrats. I mean, the Establishment Democrats run that joint. Talk about Gov, Inc.; glad-handing corporate SuperDelegates protecting profits from Democracy.

Crazy to think about if you ask me. I'll be going out there again this summer. Hopefully I can skip the cities and go directly to the disc dog ranch.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

k9disc's picture

times.

They're not Leftists or of the Left. Property is still more important than people.

They just use the people to protect and serve property, like we've been experiencing across the nation for 40 years, probably 60, if Ronnie Ray Gun is a bellwether. They've been at the front end of the jig the whole time - the trendsetter - as goes California, so goes the nation.

Not sure I'm liking what I'm seeing. If California's government is the Left, then what the hell are we and the activists they stymie.

@k9disc

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu