EMBATTLED steel producer Corus has angered unions and politicians with a new directors' bonus scheme which is not dependent on the company making a profit.

Last year the company lost £458 million and none of its directors received any bonus at all. So the company's remuneration committee has now come up with a scheme based on "personal targets".

Michael Leahy, general secretary of the ISTC steel union, said: "I thought this must be an April Fool's joke - what planet are they living on?

"Corus employees have no problem with people being rewarded for success, but it appears that the remuneration committee have decided to insulate the directors from failure.

"We urge Corus shareholders to reject this proposal at the annual general meeting later this month."

Under the new scheme, directors stand to gain up to 60 per cent of their basic salaries in bonus providing their personal performance meets certain objectives.

According to the annual report these objectives will be "suitably stretching". But Labour MP for Blaenau Gwent, Llew Smith, said: "I think the senior management should all be fired immediately for destroying an industry.

"Corus has been a disaster from day-one. All those who actually took pride in the industry and devoted their lives to it have been dumped on the scrap-heap."

Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales East, Phil Williams, added: "The decision of the Corus directors to de-couple their bonus from profits should cause no surprise - especially to trades unionists. Multinational capitalism has always been based on the self-interest of the owners and executives and always will be.

"Plaid Cymru pressed the government to consider taking the UK steel industry back into some form of public ownership two years ago.

"But Labour has become a party where millionaires, including steel magnates, carry more weight than the trades unions."

A spokesman for Corus said: "An incentive scheme needs to offer a real incentive or there is no point in it being there. The remuneration committee realised the previous scheme was unworkable and has designed a new one.

"It will be based on a mixture of cash targets, personal targets and profit targets." The spokesman added that the UK losses which undermined the former scheme were unsustainable and that was why Corus was drawing up a plan to eliminate them. He said its publishing date was "weeks or months away" but its precise timing would be dictated by the company's banks.