Sign In
SHARE
Now Playing Off Broadway: A Wall Street Morality Play
A straggly crew of protesters gathered at Rockefeller Center this afternoon to act out a familiar theme: Fat cat versus worker.
A man dressed in a pinstriped cat costume, holding two garbage bags of paper money, played Bruce Wasserstein, C.E.O. of Lazard, a finance firm with $141.4 billion under management. Radika Munna played herself.
Munna was fired in November from her cafeteria job at an Atria Senior Living, a chain of assisted-living centers owned by Lazard Alternative Investments.
"Who has no healthcare?" a mock game-host in a blue polyester suit shouted. A handful of event organizers shouted back answers: "Radika!"
Then the host asked: "Who lives in a home nicknamed the 'palace?'" And the organizers responded: "Wasserstein!"
The prompt for the not-so-subtle street theater was the recent announcement of Wasserstein's $41 million pay package for 2007, plus his five-year contract of at least $100 million in base salary and restricted stock awards.
Several midtown workers paused to take flyers from the protesters, but most kept walking in the 20-degree weather.
The Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly 2 million service workers, used the occasion to highlight the gap between Wall Street-style salaries and the pay for workers in companies like Atria that are owned by private-equity funds.
"The problems at Atria are not subtle," said Jennifer Kelly, a spokesperson for SEIU.
Wasserstein didn't fire Munna. He doesn't even run the company that fired Munna--at least not anymore. Lazard Alternative Investments operates separately from its publicly traded namesake, and has done so since 2005.
Protest organizers dismissed such hairsplitting. They contended that the affiliation between the Lazard entities remains, and the event fits into a larger campaign by labor unions to petition not just company management or factory owners, but the financiers who ultimately control each company.
"Bruce Wasserstein could pick up the phone tomorrow and provide better pay for the workers," Kelly said.
A spokesperson for Lazard declined to comment.
by Mary Bridges
Loading...
Thank you for registering as a Portfolio.com Insider. Your comment has been added.
Create Your Public Profile
- ACBJ to relaunch Portfolio.com
- May 20 2009 1:44PM EDT
- 44, Day 97: On Golf, Swine Flu, and a "Hallmark Holiday"
- Apr 26 2009 5:39PM EDT
- 44, Day 96: Where's the Suggestion Box?
- Apr 25 2009 2:10PM EDT
- 44, Day 95: Let Them Have Student Loans
- Apr 24 2009 6:49PM EDT
- Stressing Out Over Stress Tests
- Apr 24 2009 2:14PM EDT
- King of the Private Equity Hill
- Apr 24 2009 8:23AM EDT
- 44, Day 94: What's in Obama's Wallet?
- Apr 23 2009 6:39PM EDT
- Madoff Clawback Campaign Targets Ex-Clients
- Apr 23 2009 3:00PM EDT
- Merrill, Muzzle, and the Mob
- Apr 23 2009 1:45PM EDT
- 44, Day 93: Earthly Concerns
- Apr 22 2009 7:14PM EDT
- Stanford Prosecutor Arrested for Assault
- Apr 22 2009 5:47PM EDT
- IMF Downgrades the Global Economy
- Apr 22 2009 2:00PM EDT
- Ackman Opens His Target Slate to Questions
- Apr 22 2009 11:51AM EDT
- Freddie Mac Acting CFO Found Dead
- Apr 22 2009 8:42AM EDT
- 44, Day 92: About Those Interrogations
- Apr 21 2009 5:53PM EDT
Archive
