The Bernese transport company BLS is apparently applying for the title of the most unpopular Swiss company: The BLS had not only tricked the state payments for years and thus received excessive subsidies. No, now the top squad around ex-boss Bernard Guillelmon should also be rewarded for this time and receive the full bonuses, as the “Berner Zeitung” and “Bund” reported.
There is a huge subsidy scandal and nobody has to bleed for it? This is of course not the case at BLS. Little white-collar workers – those in the shipping sector – have to bleed.
As a result of the corona pandemic, the BLS closed 2020 with a loss of millions. For this reason, the transport company, which mainly belongs to the canton of Bern and the federal government, wanted its employees to have their pockets on their wallets. However, they resisted wage cuts.
Personnel must help
The BLS is now giving employees in the shipping sector a week’s vacation instead of CHF 300,000, as the company confirms at Blick’s request. Reason: “Shipping is disproportionately affected by the corona pandemic.” The financial support from the Confederation and the cantons only covers part of the loss, the rest must be covered by the company on its own. The staff must do their part to achieve this.
“The BLS, together with the SEV trade union and employee representatives, agreed on measures to temporarily cushion the financial loss.” This year, operations in the shipyards on Lake Thun and Lake Brienz will be shut down a week earlier for the festival bridge, after which the employees will reduce overtime. “In 2022, employees will forego a vacation week once. In return, there will be no redundancies for operational reasons until the end of 2023. ” And the management employees waived one week of vacation in 2021 and 2022.
49 million repaid
As a reminder: The BLS had to repay the federal government, Bern and other cantons 49 million francs to settle the subsidy affair. A little more than a year ago, CEO Guillelmon resigned, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors Rudolf Stämpfli also resigned for some time.
The BLS and with it the current board of directors around President Ueli Dietiker made the cupped hands with the federal government this spring because of a group loss of 50.8 million francs for the Corona year 2020. As he said in an interview, the BLS would have liked to receive 15 million for passenger transport, car loading on the Simplon and for the shipping division. For shipping alone, she was awarded 1.3 million, according to the “Berner Zeitung”.
Garnish instead of shine
For comparison: in the years when the BLS pocketed excessive subsidies, the former BLS boss Bernard Guillelmon sank 100,000 francs annually in variable wage components. The other members of the executive board received 50,000 francs a year.
In regional and local traffic, the BLS actively forgot from 2012 to 2018 to include the half-fare revenue from the “Libero” tariff network in its compensation requests. The BLS was able to get excessive subsidies. And: According to an investigation carried out by the auditor PWC, the BLS management had been aware of this misconduct since spring 2017.
The board of directors does not like top management money
Nevertheless, the board of directors of Guillelmon and Co. does not want to demand any money back. There is no corresponding clause in the contracts. In the Tamedia newspapers, however, business law professor Peter V. Kunz says: On the one hand, the BLS could assert deception by the bonus recipients in order to challenge the payments in court and claim back. On the other hand, such lawsuits could be threatened in order to subsequently achieve voluntary repayment at the negotiating level.
But apparently the BLS prefers to shake hands with taxpayers – after all, they had been milked illegally for years before. And just: the employees can also bleed from time to time.