The United States Proxy Exchange (USPX) is a experiment premised on the notion that a grass roots movement—by individual shareowners, for individual shareowners and funded entirely by dues of individual shaeowners—can improve corporate governance and address financial abuse. It is too early to say for sure, but based on what we achieved in 2011, the experiment appears to be working. Accomplishments included:
- We developed simple say-on-pay voting guidelines to help shaeowners make sense of executive compensation and cast productive say-on-pay votes.
- We drafted a model proxy access proposal that shareowners have been submitting to corporations for shareowner votes in 2012.
- We kept a focus on the threat of virtual-only shareowner meetings, attracting media attention, including a recent Wall Street Journalarticle
All the while, our members expanded their own personal efforts: attending annual meetings, submitting shareowner proposals, blogging and otherwise advocating for shareowner rights. These individual efforts, more than any other, are the measure of our success. In 2011, supporting them was a primary focus.
In June, we held a meeting of long-time supporters, who made a commitment to decentralizing our movement. The idea was that, no matter how capable our leadership may be, we can accomplish more by providing members the tools to self-organize around issues. Central to this strategy was our new social-networking website, which went live in November. Already, five members are actively blogging on the site, with social networking tools promoting their posts and ensuring a ready audience.
Our membership continues to grow. More importantly, the sophistication and commitment of our members is exemplary. With the social networking tools of the new website at members’ disposal, we are poised to make a difference.
Still, we face enormous challenges. Wall Street and corporate interests have seemilgly limitless funds to spend on lawyers, lobbyists and other enablers. They set the agenda and we respond to it. All three branches of our government—legislative, executive and judicial—are largely beholden to them. Most shares in this country—and the voting rights that go with them—are held by institutional investors, the majority of whom are profoundly conflicted.
With executive compensation at astronomical levels, those institutional shareowners approved compensation packages at 98% of corporations in 2011 say-on-pay votes.[1] Prospects for proxy access appear similarly dismal for 2012. The 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v FEC ensures that the upcoming presidential and congressional elections will be awash in corporate spending.
The 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement has fizzled for now, but it has lessons. For a time, their message that the system is broken resonated with Americans. They allowed themselves to be painted as “left wing” (mostly, they were) and failed to articulate an agenda. Certainly, one can take decentralization too far. Occupiers were disturbingly unsophisticated, earnestly debating meaningless proposals to abolish corporate personhood or restore the gold standard.
The USPX—small, sophisticated, adamently non-partisan, and with a clear agenda—can succeed in ways Occupy Wall Street could not. We plan for the long term and understand that education is a precursor to reform. Shoulder-to-shoulder, we face an uncertain future. We don’t promise success. We do promise a good fight.