This will be another big week for proxy voting and for making your voices heard – largely because of an absolute festival of terrible proposals that have been submitted to Alphabet (Google) for consideration at its Wednesday meeting.
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Please note that we have a proposal at Netflix on Thursday – it would protect employees against viewpoint discrimination – that we hope you’ll join us in voting FOR. The rest of the entries highlight particularly pernicious AYS proposals that we advise votes against.
Once again, thank you for your interest and for your help!
Weekly Resolution Votes
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June 4, 2020
Vote FOR our proposal at Netflix to push the company toward adding “viewpoint” to its employment nondiscrimination policy. At too many entertainment companies, including Netflix, left-wing activists are working to silence voices from the center and the right – both in the production of programs and of employees in their day-to-day affairs. We Americans, including and especially the left, learned more than half a century ago the hard lessons about the evils of McCarthy-style blacklists in both public and private employment. It’s infuriating that left-wingers, who benefited from the national consensus against harassing employees because of their political beliefs or participation, now want to wage those same harassment campaigns against the right. Our proposal is an effort to shut down this harassment and discrimination at Netflix.
Read more about FEP’s efforts to end blacklisting and other viewpoint discrimination starting on page 20 of our Investor Value Voter Guide.
Proposal 7 in Netflix’s Proxy Statement.
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June 3, 2020
Vote AGAINST the Friends Fiduciary Corporation’s proposal at Comcast that deals with its lobbying spending, including spending on trade organizations. This is a version of the standard AYS Coalition proposal seeking to stop companies from undertaking sensible, pro-business lobbying efforts that are in their companies’ and American consumers’ best interests, preferring that the lobbying field be cleared for unions and left-wing organizations to have it their own way in state legislatures. The result would be to turn every state in the union into an economic basket case like Illinois, New Jersey or Connecticut. (Imagine how bad the resulting governance has to have been to impoverish Connecticut. That’s how dangerous this proposal is.)
Read more about AYS coalition efforts to drive business interests out of lobbying efforts starting on page 37 of our Investor Value Voter Guide.
Proposal 6 in Comcast’s Proxy Statement.
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June 3, 2020
Vote AGAINST a pair of proposals at Walmart submitted by members of the AYS coalition. These are:
- A proposal (No. 5) to study the effects of Walmart offering customers single-use plastic bags, with the goal of banning those bags. This proposal was probably submitted before the coronavirus crisis, which made the lesson clear to all, but it was known before, too: reusable bags spread disease. They are a terrible idea. By comparison, “single-use” bags pose little threat to the environment and usually get reused at home for necessary tasks, making them both safe and efficient. Like so many of the AYS Coalition’s proposals, this one is a bad idea in general, and counterproductive even on its own terms.
- A proposal (No. 7) to put Walmart hourly workers on the company’s board of directors. This proposal is designed to put unions in charge at Walmart, which would massively raise prices for consumers, line the pockets of union leaders, and cost a great many workers their jobs as productivity and firm profitability fall.
Proposals 5 and 7 in Walmart’s Proxy Statement.
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June 3, 2020
Vote AGAINST a series of proposals at Alphabet (Google) submitted by various AYS coalition organizations. These proposals include:
- A proposal (No. 7) that would establish a “human-rights” committee that would be explicitly designed to disfavor conservative, libertarian, or any other sort of insufficiently “woke” and leftwing thought (through the tired and fraudulent expedient of labeling all such thought “hate”);
- A proposal (No. 13) that would put a “human-rights” expert on the Board of Directors for the same purpose; and
- A pair of proposals (Nos. 9 and 12) that would push Alphabet into establishing employment quotas; into hiring, retention and promotion on the basis of surface characteristics rather than merit; and into setting up false pay equivalencies based on those surface characteristics that would upend employment in the company and invite permanent employee grievance and lawsuits.
Read more about FEP objections to these sorts of proposals throughout our Investor Value Voter Guide, particularly beginning at page 28 (race- and gender-based quotas and divisiveness) and page 52 (banning conservatives from national public life).
Proposals 7, 9, 12 and 13 in Alphabet’s Proxy Statement.
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June 4, 2020
Vote AGAINST John Chevedden’s proposal at Netflix that deals with its election spending, including spending on trade organizations. This is a different version of the AYS Coalition proposal discussed above that will be raised at Comcast on June 3 rd. If companies are barred from lobbying in favor of pro-business proposals, states will succumb to the business-wrecking, capitalism-destroying efforts of the left. After the three-month free trial version of nanny-state socialism that we’ve all just passed through, and the hard work we’ll all have to do to get the economy moving again, do we really want to tilt the board in favor of making that way of life permanent?
Remember to vote FOR our proposal, proposal number 7, discussed above.
Read more about the AYS Coalition efforts to drive business interests out of lobbying efforts starting on page 37 of our Investor Value Voter Guide.
Proposal 5 in Netflix’s Proxy Statement.
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In response to the liberal left’s outsized influence over corporate proxy ballot matters, the Free Enterprise Project (FEP) has debuted its first annual Investor Value Voter Guide to educate investors who want to vote in line with conservative and religious values.
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The Free Enterprise Project (FEP) is the liberty movement's only full-service shareholder and activism group that is effective in pushing corporate America back to neutral and out of the culture wars. Donations are tax-deductible and greatly appreciated.
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