According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, unions and pension funds are attempting to harness executive compensation through shareholder proposals and resolutions. The funds argue that despite shareholders losing millions, executives incur little or no personal monetary loss and often maintain their high salaries, bonuses, and lucrative severance packages.
Charlie Tharp, executive vice president for policy at the Center on Executive Compensation, maintains that compensation decisions are best left to corporate directors: "It would be unwise to usurp the duty of the board to represent the interests of all shareholders rather than the interests expressed by one group of shareholders."
The corporations are resisting the recent push and have successfully persuaded the SEC (in all its infinite wisdom) to block shareholder voting on the proposals that would limit executive pay. To be sure, shareholders are anticipating more support from the SEC once the Obama administration takes the helm. Until then, it's business as usual:
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Last week the Commission filed seven new enforcement actions. Six were
civil injunctive actions while one was an administrative proceeding. The
civil injun...
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