The phrase "a big severance" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when referring to a substantial amount of severance pay given to an employee upon termination of employment.
Example: "After years of dedicated service, she received a big severance that allowed her to take some time off before starting her next job."
Alternatives: "a large severance" or "a substantial severance".
In 94percentt of the contracts, he said, they cannot be fired for unsatisfactory work without a big severance package.
Mr. Fishman will be paid well if he fails, and even better if the company is sold — including a big severance payout.
Earlier this month, when employees grew incensed at the prospect of his collecting a big severance package with the company's sale to Dynegy, he volunteered to walk away from $60 million in payments.
PIRC is also encouraging shareholders of Tesco, a large British grocery chain, to vote against a bigger severance package for its chief executive, Terry Leahy.
Unlike permanent employees, temporary workers can be laid off without big severance payments and lengthy negotiations with labor representatives.
Big severance packages also make it much harder for start-ups to recruit the professional managers that can take them into the big league.
Still, some investors said that the very idea of big severance packages meant that shareholders had not been as active in watching corporate pay in Europe as elsewhere.
The departure of each of the past three C.E.O.s (if Apotheker leaves as expected) have been marked by significant embarrassment — and big severance packages.
The once-widespread practice of paying a boss's taxes on his post-takeover payout, a nice little earner known as the "excise tax gross-up", has also ended, costing some chief executives millions of dollars, says Mr Kay.Bosses can no longer trigger big severance payouts by "self-termination"—quitting or retiring adds Doug Friske of Towers Watson, another pay consultant.
Mr Harrigan blamed political interference for his fall; his critics think CalPERS's campaigns to improve corporate governance have become too diffuse.See articleMerck plans big severance packages for more than 200 executives if the firm is taken over, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
And it could be — if it leads other compensation consultants to follow his lead, and boards to begin rethinking big severance packages for C.E.O.'s who have either failed to perform or have been in the job so long they have already reaped tremendous rewards.
