By Christina O’Connell
If you own stocks in your retirement or investment accounts, annual meeting notices will fill your inbox each spring – and if you’re like most of us, you likely don’t pay them much attention. These notices or “proxy statements” are pretty dense documents, providing financial results and more but they are also your chance to vote as an owner on the policies and actions of these companies. Think of it as shareholder democracy. Each year, you have a say in who leads the company and in what direction.
As our corporations become bigger and more powerful, their actions have ever larger impacts on our lives – who gets hired and promoted, how our planet is treated and how representative corporate leadership is of our communities and concerns. And while we’ve been skipping those annual meeting votes, activists who oppose our rights have been paying attention.
Since the 1970s, when groups of shareholders pressed companies they had invested in to divest from South African apartheid, climate, human rights and workers rights advocates have followed their lead. Shareholders have the right to submit proposals to their companies asking for transparency and changes in policies that will lead to better practices and better profitability.
Recently, right wing groups have adopted similar methods to try to force companies to turn back progress. In our current chaotic political climate, they have put us all at risk. One of their tools have been these very same shareholder proposals combined with often vicious lobbying campaigns that can intimidate corporate managers into surrendering and bring harm to our communities.
The good news is that investors have already been pushing back this year at some early annual meetings such as Apple, Disney, Levi’s and Costco, voting in large majorities to protect employment equity and inclusion.
At John Deere & Co (NYSE:DE) where management has given in to anti-LGBTQ activists’ demands, investors sent a loud and clear message. 98.7% of shareholders voted down an anti-DEI proposal from a right wing organization.
Now it’s your chance to help.
It’s easy but powerful. If you own shares, your broker or bank will send you a notice in your mail or email announcing the annual meeting and including a ballot. The Proxy Bulletin they provide will include copies of the shareholder proposals and a company response to each. They’ll also list candidates for the Board of Directors. The ballot will give you instructions to safely cast your vote online or by mail. (The high drama of Succession style annual meetings are mostly a thing of the past.) Once you take a look at the candidates and the proposals, simply check off your preferences and submit your vote.
Among this year’s proposals, shareholders at Lowe’s, Tractor Supply and Best Buy are being asked to vote on an LGBTQ+ Nondiscrimination Report. These three proposals have been submitted by the AFL-CIO and “urge the Board of Directors to prepare a report on the Company’s efforts to prevent harassment and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.” The proposals note the documented benefits to companies that do not discriminate and on the Tractor Supply filing, they comment “Transgender people are as likely to live in rural areas as cisgender people, and face the same levels of discrimination as in non-rural areas. Public opinion survey research has found that rural identified respondents are broadly supportive of LGBTQ+ rights.”
Proposals such as these are one very effective way to counter the false claims that companies should back away from the concerns of the communities where they operate. As Andy Behar, CEO of As You Sow noted: “Shareholders understand that diversity and inclusion are material to profitable growth. Anyone who’s looking at the data, which the companies and shareholders are, comes to the conclusion that greater diversity leads to financial outperformance.”
There are a total of 354 such shareholder proposals this year addressing human rights, diversity and inclusion, climate change and good governance for publicly traded companies. Votes like the ones at Costco or Deere speak directly to the Board members where we invest. And on those ballots, we can also vote for or against the Board members themselves. Our votes may not always add up to the impressive totals we’ve seen above, but those Board members notice when investors’ votes show up.
Don’t own individual stocks? Have a mutual fund 401K or other pension? Email your fund manager and let them know you want your investments to support our rights and a better future. Remember as investors we are the owners and expect to be heard.
If you would like more information on this year’s shareholder proposals, you can download ICCR’s Proxy Resolutions And Voting Guide, which lists a large selection of companies. proposals and proposal filers. If you want to dig deeper, As You Sow and Proxy Impact publish a Proxy Preview each year with information on trends in proposals and this year, discusses the attempts by the new administration’s SEC to limit shareholder rights.
