Who Loses the Most at Marsh? Its Workers. (depressing article)

[baby_bear]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/business/yourmoney/24watch.html

<snip>
Certain things in life never change, of course, and one of the more unfortunate constants is that when corporations behave badly, their rank-and-file workers are hit hardest. Executives always seem to vanish from the accident scene, toting their munificent pay packages; ordinary workers are left with little or nothing.


Nowhere is this clearer than at Marsh & McLennan, the world's largest insurance brokerage concern and the subject of a lawsuit from Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, that accuses the company of rigging bids to keep insurance costs high. The company's stock has cratered as investors have tried to assess the long-term implications of the investigation.
......
The biggest losers by far are the company's 60,000 workers around the world, many of whom were essentially pushed by the company to load up on Marsh shares. Most of these people, whose retirement accounts have been eviscerated, are probably guilty of nothing more than trying to do their jobs.
...
Why did workers put so many eggs in their company's basket? Until last year, Marsh stock was the sole investment option available to participants in this defined-contribution plan, except for those near retirement. And when the company decided to add mutual fund alternatives, it said its employees could switch out of only one-third of their Marsh stock holdings during a year...executives at Marsh, like those at many financial companies, are allowed to invest in private investment funds. And corporate executives understand well the need for diversification.

</snip>

I don't get it. The Bush administration did NOTHING in response to the Enron debacle? Good grief. I especially don't get the way these company big wigs can shuffle their employees into buying the stock while they themselves spread it around.

There is considerably more to this article than I was able to snip here, so if you are interested in the subject matter, I recommend the whole thing.

s_m