Funny thing, I own a vast number of stocks through various means, either directly or via ETFs, and yet never in my life have I had an opportunity to weigh in on the salaries of anyone in the companies I hold equity in.
> Public unions seem more undesirable. There we have the gov negotiating with itself with no external accountability, unlike your example.
The government is negotiating with unions, not itself. However, if we're going to take a crack at public sector unions, let's start with the police unions.
>Funny thing, I own a vast number of stocks through various means, either directly or via ETFs, and yet never in my life have I had an opportunity to weigh in on the salaries of anyone in the companies I hold equity in.
Really? I get shareholder meeting notices for voting on compensation packages all the time. I admit that the chances of me personally shutting down the pay package of AIG's executive team is pretty much nil, but that's also because I personally own pretty much nil in terms of voting stock, and most people like me probably either don't vote at all, or vote with the board recommendations. Still, it's always within my power to try to start a shareholder movement on this front.
Technically that’s true but the holdings of these public mega firms tend to be in the hands of many small holders such as you or I, who it’s well understood are unlikely to cause a fuss for the reasons you mentioned.
> Funny thing, I own a vast number of stocks through various means, either directly or via ETFs, and yet never in my life have I had an opportunity to weigh in on the salaries of anyone in the companies I hold equity in.
Because obviously what you call "vast" is actually a minuscule percentage of the company.
Exactly. "shareholder activism" is called that because it is a considered an anomalous, bizarre state of affairs. Imagine the temerity of the people who own the shares of the company calling the shots! In reality, management has basically a completely free hand to do whatever they want so long as an incumbent board doesn't get its shit together and replace them (and even that is sometimes not enough).
This is also beside the main point, which is that management shares a class interest with shareholders, even if they aren't literally the same people at some particular point in time. Capital and management are obviously on the same side, and labor isn't part of the club.
I haven't actually kept track, but it wouldn't surprise me for my direct stock ownership I've voted on executives in at least 70% of them and executive pay packages on probably 20% of them. Mostly mid to large cap though.
Not that my votes "no" were ever successful in curbing the growth of executive pay. Hard to vote against the executives who probably own a decent chunk of the voting shares themselves.
Funny thing, I own a vast number of stocks through various means, either directly or via ETFs, and yet never in my life have I had an opportunity to weigh in on the salaries of anyone in the companies I hold equity in.
> Public unions seem more undesirable. There we have the gov negotiating with itself with no external accountability, unlike your example.
The government is negotiating with unions, not itself. However, if we're going to take a crack at public sector unions, let's start with the police unions.