The Shareholder Commons

We are thrilled to announce that Mari Schwartzer has joined us Director of Investor Engagement. Mari (she/her) joined TSC with more than 16 years of experience in corporate engagement and stewardship, ESG integration, and strategies to engage companies on social justice priorities. She began her career as the Director of Shareholder Activism and Engagement for NorthStar Asset Management, a socially responsible investment firm. In that role, Mari represented the firm’s clients in hundreds of engagements with senior-level management at companies worldwide, filing more than 350 shareholder proposals over time. During her tenure at NorthStar, Mari established the firm’s advocacy program, co-developed its approach to social and environmental research, and became the primary advisor on ESG implementation to the firm’s investment team.   Mari holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Central Florida and a master's degree from Simmons University. She is on the leadership team of the Proxy Voting Working Group of the Racial Justice Investing Coalition, and has served on the board for both her local Jewish congregation and the Thirty Percent Coalition.   Her motivations to press for positive change were first ingrained by her environmental activist mother and, in her career, Mari remains inspired and grounded by a quote from a Rabbinic text that reminds us, “you are not obligated to finish the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” Welcome, Mari!

The broad effort to eliminate shareholder voice from corporate governance--including limiting shareholder proposals, giving insiders high vote stock, and putting obstacles in the way of universal ballot use--runs counter to the ethos of free market capitalism by demoting the voice of capital. We must not leave critical economic decisions to a small class of corporate managers who are increasingly unaccountable. Julie Gorte's article on the recent Exxon lawsuit exposes the doublespeak behind the movement to silence investors.

"It makes no sense to establish a fiduciary system that purports to ignore the financial interests of the very people it’s meant to protect." Read our latest newsletter for more on the implications of a recent decision in James McRitchie's case against Meta and the decidedly anti-capitalist lawsuit ExxonMobil filed against shareholders Arjuna Capital and Follow This | Shareholders change the world. We also provide a link to a podcast our CEO Rick Alexander joined alongside The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. https://lnkd.in/gTDdJtJz #CorporateLaw #SystemStewardship #ShareholderValue Natasha Lamb Mark van Baal McKenzie U.

To protect your portfolios, investors should vote FOR our proposal asking Kroger to pay a #LivingWage at the company's annual meeting on June 27. At Kroger, the *average* hourly wage isn't enough to sustain a single adult with no children, even in low-cost areas. Kroger doesn't disclose its lowest pay rates, forcing its shareholders to rely on outside sources for this information. ZipRecruiter reports hourly wages for Kroger clerks in Alabama as low as $7.32, with the majority of Kroger clerk hourly wages ranging between $10.98 (25th percentile) to $14.43 (75th percentile) in that state. None of those comes anywhere close to the living wage, which (by way of example) is $19.43 for a single adult with no children and $23.55 for a household with two working adults and two children at Kroger's Hartselle, Alabama location. This failure to provide a living wage to people who work for a living threatens the entire economy, and thus the investment portfolios of the average diversified investor. Join co-filers LGIM America, Zevin Asset Management, and members of Seventh Generation Interfaith Coalition for Responsible Investing in supporting this proposal. Our exempt solicitation spells out why it's in shareholders' best interests: https://lnkd.in/eDvauj_d

Our CEO recently appeared on Jeremy Owens' MarketWatch podcast with Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz to discuss the future of capitalism. https://lnkd.in/eH87kQss

Angeli Benham of Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has written an excellent blog post on why investors should support the shareholder proposal we filed on LGIM America's behalf that asks Walmart to pay a #LivingWage. Poverty wages and #IncomeInequality threaten the entire economy and--by extension--diversified investors. To protect your portfolio, vote FOR Item 7 on June 5. #SystemStewardship #FiduciaryDuty

Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the United States and the sixth largest employer among U.S. public companies; its policies thus have tremendous influence on the market as a whole. On June 27, investors who wish to protect their portfolios should vote FOR Item 6 on Kroger's proxy ballot. The proposal--which we filed on behalf of LGIM America, Zevin Asset Management, and members of Seventh Generation Interfaith Coalition for Responsible Investing--requests that Kroger pay a #LivingWage, with the aim of protecting diversified portfolios from negative effects on the economy caused by inadequate wages and expanding income inequality. Kroger asserts that its *average* hourly rate is nearly $19 per hour. With an *average* hourly wage that falls well short of a living wage, Kroger clearly underpays many of its workers, especially those at starting wages in the lowest-paid jobs. Kroger doesn't disclose its lowest pay rates, forcing its shareholders to rely on outside sources for this information. For instance, jobs site ZipRecruiter reports hourly wages for Kroger clerks in Alabama as low as $7.32, with the majority of Kroger clerk hourly wages ranging between $10.98 (25th percentile) to $14.43 (75th percentile) in that state. None of those comes close to Alabama’s living wage. Kroger’s lowest pay is deeply inadequate no matter the employee’s location or family situation, and its average wage fails to meet the basic needs of single, childless employees even in the most economically disadvantaged areas of the country. The average Kroger worker makes far less than necessary to sustain a family of four with both adults working full time, even in locations with the lowest cost of living. Kroger’s average hourly wage isn’t even enough to sustain a single adult with no children in its lowest cost-of-living locations. Kroger employees have also accused it of lying about the wage rates it pays. In late 2022, a Central Ohio news station spoke with Kroger workers about their pay, and heard multiple allegations that the workers’ wages did not comport with Kroger's public statements about its pay rates. “I promise you that starting pay that they posted is an out-and-out lie. I have been with Kroger for over 23 years. I’m just at $18 an hour,” said one Kroger worker in an email to the station. Another employee provided pay stubs to prove he was making just $15 hourly, despite a September 19, 2022 Kroger press release saying “a cashier’s current wage is $17.10 an hour.” Our exempt solicitation provides more detail: https://lnkd.in/efCAsChJ #SystemStewardship #FiduciaryDuty

Restaurant Brands International is one of the world’s largest fast food restaurant operators and a major purchaser of meat; its policies thus have tremendous influence on the market as a whole. Investors who wish to protect their portfolios should vote FOR Item 7 at the company's June 6 meeting. The proposal requests that RBI comply with World Health Organization guidelines on antimicrobial use in meat supply chains, with the aim of protecting an essential component of modern medicine that supports a thriving economy. RBI says its existing policies are “appropriate.” This is false. #AntimicrobialResistance (#AMR) is increasing at an alarming clip, creating expanding economic damage and consequent threat to the value of diversified portfolios, and RBI's policies and performance don't sufficiently mitigate the risk to its diversified shareholders.   RBI says its policies are already “aligned” with WHO Guidelines. This is false. RBI's existing policies cover only a small fraction of its operations and protein sources, and in the main are only suggestions rather than requirements.   RBI says reducing antimicrobial use in cows and pigs presents “challenges.” This is misleading on one hand and irrelevant on the other. The proposal is not time-bound and leaves substantial latitude to management where implementation is concerned. Most challenges can be met with adequate resources, and RBI is simply declining to mount a response proportionate to the risk its shareholders face. The vast majority of investors are everyday savers such as Texas teachers, Detroit fire fighters, and other working people who count on their savings and pensions for a dignified retirement. For them, the single greatest determinant of portfolio value is broad economic health, and AMR is poised to cost the economy $100 trillion by 2050. Our exempt solicitation provides further detail: https://lnkd.in/e4WHzxYR #SystemStewardship #FiduciaryDuty Maria Larsson Ortino Romane Thomas Akaash Sachdeva Sonya Sawtell-Rickson Edouard Dubois Emma Berntman, PhD

Although proxy season is beginning to wind down, there are still 23 Portfolios on the Ballot (POTB) shareholder actions poised for votes in the coming weeks. In this week's POTB update -- our last installment until the fall -- we highlight several different categories of proxy actions that remain. These actions link #RacialJustice, #WorkerSafety, paying a #LivingWage, #DeepSeaMining, and #EthicalAI to #SystemStewardship and diversified investor value. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e-UngrAq While this is our final spring 2024 update, sign up now to get a fall 2024 proxy season mini update and to be notified when we launch again in 2025: https://lnkd.in/gxZb_rkt #SystemStewardship #ProxyVoting #POTB