The push for a majority vote for director elections appears to be gaining ground in recent years. As previously reported by Pomtalk, for the Proxy year of 2007, there are 99 proposals for a majority vote for directors compared to 94 in 2006. According to an ISS blog, the most frequently filed proxy proposals in 2006 and 2005 were those demanding that director nominees in uncontested elections be elected by “the affirmative vote of the majority of votes cast at an annual meeting of shareholders.”
Furthermore, according to ISS, shareholders filed 84 majority election proposals in the first half of 2006. This compares with 54 proposals for the first half of 2005 and a scant 12 for the first half of 2004. In 2006, 47.7% of these proposals were adopted, compared to 44.3% during the first half of 2005. In 2004, none of the majority election proposals succeeded.
Union pension funds, such as the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, were and still are, at the vanguard of these efforts. Pomtalk tips its hat to these funds for its efforts on behalf of investors’ rights.
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