Bluescope's big steal

Bluescope Steel is carving around $1000 a year out of 
employees' retirement nest eggs while plonking more than $200,000 
into its American CEO's superannuation account.

The company, which has just posted a record profit of $584 
million, has been warned that industrial action will escalate 
unless it improves its attitudes to super and redundancy.

More than 1000 Bluescope employees in Queensland, NSW, Victoria 
and South Australia went out on strike two weeks back.

Australian Workers' Union Secretary, Bill Shorten, says the 
company is using an "outdated legal technicality" to dud workers 
of super contributions, and its redundancy policies are 
undermining the security of thousands of families.

Mr Shorten said Bluescope refused to include bonuses in super 
calculations, contrary to accepted industry practice.

His union estimates the policy has short-changed 10-year workers 
at its Western Port plant in Victoria by around $13,000.

Bluescope has announced it paid a $4.4 million salary package to 
CEO, Kirby Adams, last year, including a super component of 
$204,528 a year. That represented a 28.1 percent increase on his 
2002-03 "earnings".

The company's annual report reveals that it paid another three 
executives more than $1 million, last year.

Their earnings, and percentage movements on the 2002-03 financial 
year, were: Lance Hockridge $1,600,669, up 39 percent; Kathryn 
Fagg, $1,253,429, up 15.2 percent; Brian Kruger, $1,251,333, up 
26.8 percent.