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Antiwork

If you have a 401K, vote your proxies!

Yes, I know that a lot of people don't have stock. But if you are lucky enough to like Gen-X me, then you might be surprised by what companies you hold, especially if you have mutual or index funds. A lot of shareholder meetings are in May so you should go to whatever site hosts your funds (Fidelity, etc) and see if there are currently open proxy votes (usually via your message/mail link in the website). I'm normally guilty of ignoring these but I realized that I owe it to myself and those who don't own stock to vote down executive compensation packages and the like. Every share that isn't voted by its owner is instead is voted by the board, resulting in the status quo becoming more entrenched. Also, you may find some surprising things on the ballots. Archer Daniels Midlands has a proposal “Regarding Issuance of a Report…


Yes, I know that a lot of people don't have stock. But if you are lucky enough to like Gen-X me, then you might be surprised by what companies you hold, especially if you have mutual or index funds. A lot of shareholder meetings are in May so you should go to whatever site hosts your funds (Fidelity, etc) and see if there are currently open proxy votes (usually via your message/mail link in the website). I'm normally guilty of ignoring these but I realized that I owe it to myself and those who don't own stock to vote down executive compensation packages and the like. Every share that isn't voted by its owner is instead is voted by the board, resulting in the status quo becoming more entrenched.

Also, you may find some surprising things on the ballots. Archer Daniels Midlands has a proposal “Regarding Issuance of a Report on Pesticide Use in Supply Chains” and Johnson & Johnson has proposals on discontinuing the sale of baby talc, Civil Rights and Equity, a third party racial audit, and a proposal to tie CEO compensation to workforce pay (sound familiar, /r/antiwork?). All of the above were recommended “against” by the different boards, by the way, so if I hadn't logged in and voted “yes” they would all have been “no” votes.

It aint much but it took me five minutes and prevents these boards from pretending they can speak for me.

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