When Your 401(k) Provider Doesn't Vote Your Interests [View all]

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Being laid off is bad enough. Seeing your 401(k) plan then vote for your boss's mega-million-dollar compensation package -- justified in part by his "initiating voluntary reduction in executive ranks and other cost-cutting measures” -- might tip anger into outrage.

Seeing a fund in a 401(k) plan approve executive compensation packages that reward executives for laying off employees -- aka plan participants -- is not uncommon. If you work at a major public company, and your retirement savings plan has an index fund, odds are it owns stock in your employer. Come proxy time, that gives it a vote in how senior executives at your company are paid. And most funds vote to approve management's recommendations on executive pay.

For an example, look at Lockheed Martin, where some 8,000 employees got pink slips in the last two years. Chief Executive Officer Robert Stevens received $21.9 million in fiscal year 2010, according to the company’s April 2011 proxy statement, in part because he took the cost-cutting actions quoted above. By two estimates, from financial research firms Obermatt and GMI, at the time of the proxy, Stevens was one of the most overpaid CEOs in the U.S.

While the average company in the S&P 500 got an 87 percent approval rating on the compensation advisory vote in their proxy -- known as a “say on pay” vote -- Lockheed got a 69 percent approval rating from shareholders. The company was one of ten blue chips in the Fortune 100 to receive such a low approval rating. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-04/when-your-401-k-provider-doesn-t-vote-your-interests.html