Vice presidents at Department of Energy contractor Bechtel are taking pay cuts of up to 25% over 90 days during the COVID-19 crisis
The one-quarter reduction applies to senior vice presidents, while principal vice presidents at the Reston, Va.-based company are receiving a 10% reduction, management told employees on April 6. The measure is a response to the economic fallout of the pandemic, a source said this week, and probably affects fewer than 100 executives.
Savings would apparently be used to help compensate employees whose projects have been cancelled or suspended due to COVID-19.
The family owned engineering, procurement, and construction company with upward of 35,000 employees is a major player in the Energy Department nuclear complex. Among its businesses, it holds a $14.7 billion contract to build the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, and also leads the Consolidated Nuclear Security joint venture that manages the Pantex Plant in Texas and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee.
CEO Brendan Bechtel noted recently the company is one of the corporate participants providing advice to the Donald Trump administration on restarting the economy as the United States emerges from COVID-19 quarantine. Among other things, Bechtel recommends widespread testing for coronavirus infections and public investment in infrastructure.
Bechtel is one of at least two major DOE contractors to have recently cut executive pay levels.
Publicly traded Fluor announced in an April 10 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that vice presidents and other executives had agreed to a temporary 20% pay cut.
Fluor also announced this week it has suspended its dividend effective Wednesday due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fluor also said for the first four months of 2020 its cash balance has ranged in the neighborhood of $1.7 billion to $2 billion.
