Wall St. Run Wild—Here’s How It Happened
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Here’s a great video that shows in part how the nation got to the point where inequality is so rampant, CEO greed so unrepentent and Wall Street so not held accountable that people across the nation have taken to the streets—and are staying there.
As Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren says here:
We go with this idea of “Let’s get rid of regulation” and what happens? Late 1980s, savings and loan crisis—should have been a warning. Late 1990s, remember long-term capital management, hedge funds? Should have been a warning. Early 2000s, Enron—should have been a warning. But we let it go and where did we end up? In the biggest crisis since the Great Depression.
H/T to MoveOn.org for featuring this clip from Lance Baxter’s YouTube channel.
Don’t Let the Chamber and Big Biz Gut Workers’ Say on CEO Pay
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With trillions of dollars in pension funds, the collective power of working people’s money can begin to rein in the out-of-control CEO pay that is hurting shareholders and the economy as a whole. But a new law to hold the financial industry accountable is already in danger.
According to the AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch, a CEO of a Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 index company was paid, on average, $9.25 million in total compensation in 2009. At the same time, millions of workers lost their jobs, their homes and their retirement savings in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
The Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and other Big Business groups are lobbying hard for changes that would protect that exorbitant CEO pay by gutting the new law’s “say on pay” provisions, before they even begin.
Fox Spends Labor Day Attacking Working People
Most people celebrate working people on Labor Day. But not the extremists on Fox News. There, hate-mongering never takes a day off.
Here are a few ugly examples of Fox from our friends at Media Matters for America:
- Tucker Carlson attacks autoworkers.
- Glenn Beck assails an 80-year-old labor activist because she spoke at a high school.
- Stuart Varney criticizes a union-backed Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would allow more shareholders of public companies to use proxy votes to nominate board members.
Clearly Fox opposes opening up the election process to shareholders who have a financial stake in a company because it would mean less chance for corporate greed and mismanagement.
Meanwhile, the anti-worker crowd doesn’t like being called out by Media Matters. So what do they do—they resort to thuggish suggestions of violence, saying Media Matters employees should be “curb-stomped.”
More here.
Big Bloc of Dell Investors Back Call to Oust Chairman
Richard Waters confirms that our call for shareholders to withhold their votes from Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Inc, had a big impact–just over 25 percent of shareholders withheld their support for his appointment, an extremely high percentage for such a vote. Here’s his report on FT.com, Financial Times’ online news site:
A substantial minority of the shareholders of Dell, the world’s third-biggest PC maker, have backed an investor protest aimed at pressuring the company’s board into stripping founder Michael Dell of the title of chairman.
According to an official Dell filing late on Tuesday in the U.S., holders of 25.1 per cent of shares voted at the company’s annual meeting last week withheld their support for Mr Dell’s reappointment as a director. The protest vote was sizeable given the automatic reinstatement most U.S. directors receive.
The AFL-CIO and AFSCME asked Dell shareholders to withhold their votes from Michael Dell at the annual shareholder meeting. The AFL-CIO and AFSCME, which both own Dell shares, said the company would be better served by removing Michael Dell as chairman.
We cited both the company’s settlement of fraud complaints by the Securities and Exhange Commission (SEC) and the fact that Michael Dell received $453.8 million in total compensation including stock option exercises between 2000 and 2009–about $45,380,000 a year or $21,817 an hour for a 40-hour week with no overtime–while shareholders lost 66 percent of the value of their stock.
AFL-CIO, AFSCME Call for Removal of Dell Chairman
The AFL-CIO and AFSCME are asking Dell Inc. shareholders to withhold their votes from Michael Dell, the company’s chairman and CEO, at the annual shareholder meeting Aug. 12. The AFL-CIO and AFSCME, which both own Dell shares, say the company would be better served by removing Michael Dell as chairman.
Last month, Dell postponed its annual meeting to give shareholders time to consider a proposed settlement of a complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC complaint alleged that payments from microprocessor manufacturer Intel were improperly disclosed to shareholders and that “cookie jar” reserve accounts had been manipulated. Under the proposed settlement, Dell Inc. agreed to pay a $100 million penalty and Michael Dell agreed to pay a $4 million penalty.
So-called cookie jar reserve accounts refer to an accounting practice in which a company uses generous reserves from good years against losses that might be incurred in bad years. The SEC prohibits cookie jar accounting by publicly traded companies because it misleads investors by understating earnings in good years and overstating in bad years.
‘Say on Exec Pay’ Bill Advances in House
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A key congressional committee took another step toward reforming the way Wall Street works yesterday. By a vote of 40-28, the House Financial Services Committee approved H.R. 3269, the Corporate and Financial Institution Compensation Fairness Act. The act would help end the excessive compensation practices that encourage executives to take excessive risks that ultimately hurt employees, shareholders and taxpayers.
The bill would give shareholders a “say on pay” and allow them a nonbinding vote on executive pay. It also would require that independent directors from outside of management serve on compensation committees.
Says committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.):
This bill is the first step toward comprehensive financial regulatory reform. I look forward to having this bill on the House floor soon, and I also look forward to changing the status quo.
SEC Proposals Would Expose Conflicts on CEO Pay
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The AFL-CIO today applauded rules proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to give shareholders better information about the potential conflicts of interest of compensation consultants who help set pay for senior corporate executives.
A December 2007 congressional report found that CEOs of companies that use compensation consultants who have potential conflicts, such as providing management with other services, received considerably higher pay than CEOs of companies that used independent compensation consultants.
In a statement, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said “better disclosure is needed to bring these conflicts of interest out of the shadows.”
Outsized compensation packages for senior executives hurt shareholders, including pension plans investing the retirement savings of America’s working families. Labor union members participate in pension plans with more than $4 trillion in assets. Union-sponsored pension plans hold about $450 billion in assets. Excessive pay packages for top executives are a giveaway of our members’ money.
AFL-CIO Urges Stricter Bank Bailout Process, Hails NEA Affiliations
The AFL-CIO Executive Council wrapped up its winter meeting in Miami today, calling for stricter regulation and oversight of the financial industry, urging President Obama to ensure that taxpayers get “fair value” for any additional funds used to bail out the nation’s banks, authorizing continuation of discussions on unifying the labor movement and urging adoption of a global charter of rights for working women.
Also today, the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association (NEA) announced that three more NEA local chapters, with more than 3,000 members, have affiliated with the AFL-CIO under the Solidarity Partnership program. The program is supported by AFT, a long-time AFL-CIO affiliate.
Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:
These affiliations show that we are unified and committed to fighting for quality education in our nation’s classrooms.
