Okay, one of many tools, but this one is worth serious consideration by the entire progressive community:
(Warning: both the Catholic World Report and Playboy magazine are referenced in this piece. If you feel this could cause the Internet to implode into a black hole, read no further))
In the 1970's, Saul Alinsky worked with an amazing and effective tactic for confrontic corporate power. He worked to get concerned citizens to assign their shareholder's proxy votes to organizers who then would demand votes on issues at annual meetings with the force of those votes behind them. These actions were not expected to change policy directly, because a few powerful sharholders would hold a majority of vote, but the resultin gdisruption and publicity was able to force change.
This can still work. The simple proof? Right wingers like Proof that this Andrew Briebart are scared of it:
Like net neutrality, another pet cause of the Left, proxy access sounds technical and somewhat boring on the surface. But also like net neutrality, and like the Fairness Doctrine, proxy access would fundamentally reshape an area of commerce to the Left’s advantage by granting a right of forced access to viewpoints that have been unable to prevail in the marketplace of ideas. And because proxy access would reach all types of businesses that are publicly traded, it could serve as a lever to force U.S. companies to bow to the Left’s wish list on every policy from “card check” that would end secret ballot for union elections to cap-and-trade rationing of electricity to a silencing of conservative voices by small group of ideological shareholders who would have veto power over the content of a media company.
These fights are going on now.
Learning from Alinsky October 2010 issue of Catholic World Report:
Drawing from Saul Alinsky’s 1970s “Proxies for People” strategy, progressive nuns are now attending shareholders’ meetings and engaging in proxy votes to confront corporations on issues ranging from executive compensation and derivatives to military spending to “ending the corporate control of (bottled) water.” (Time reports that under “Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules, any shareholder of a publicly traded company that has held $2,000 worth of that corporation’s stock for at least a year can send in a proposal to be voted on at the firm’s annual meeting.”)
See also
Nuns vs. Bankers: The Shareholder Proxy Wars Time Wednesday, Apr. 21, 2010:
At Citigroup's annual meeting this week, a group of New Jersey nuns, the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, asked the bank's shareholders to ratify a proposal that would require Citi to issue a report by the end of the year stating its policies on the collateral used to back many of the bank's most complicated trades. And the Sisters of Charity are not alone in making requests of corporate America. The Sisters of Mercy Investment Program will ask Lockheed Martin at that company's annual meeting to detail how much money it spends developing space weapons. And environmental group As You Sow wants Coca-Cola to stop using potentially cancer-causing BPA plastics in its soda cans.
here's more from Triple Pundit: People Planet Profit December 10th, 2010:
For instance, in 2006, an article in the Christian Science Monitor, entitled, “The power of nun: taking a lead role in shareholder activism,” the article stated that, “the Bronx-based Sisters of Mercy bought stock in Synagro, a fertiliser pelletmaker with a plant in the Bronx, in order to lean on them to clean up emissions caused by burning New York City sewage in the pelletmaking process.”
In the US, a significant proportion of all proxy initiatives—stockholder proposals voted on at company meetings—are sponsored by religious organisations. Leading these fights in the US is the Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). The “ICCR raises the prophetic voice of faith [on behalf of nearly 300 faith-based institutional investors] to change the way companies conduct themselves as good corporate citizens… In 2010, ICCR’s members have filed 282 shareholder resolutions on social, environmental and corporate governance issues.”
An example of how successful the ICCR has been is the following: “an ICCR member-sponsored proposal requesting greater transparency around derivatives achieved an unprecedented 30 per cent approval by shareholders (typically, a shareholder vote in the double-digits is considered very successful) and went on to produce votes above 30 per cent at the AGMs [annual general meetings] of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.”
Here's Alinksy describing the potential from a March 1972 Playboy Interview(yes, believe it or not, the magazine actually has done some journalism):
...So what finally broke Kodak's resistance?
ALINSKY: Simple self–interest –– the knowledge that the price of continuing to fight us was greater than reaching a compromise. It was one of the longest and toughest battles I've been in, though. After endless months of frustration, we finally decided we'd try to embarrass Kodak outside its fortress of Rochester, and disrupt the annual stockholders' convention in Flemington, New Jersey. Though we didn't know it at the time –– all we had in mind was a little troublemaking –– this was the seed from which a vitally important tactic was to spring. I addressed the General Assembly of the Unitarian–Universalist Association and asked them for their proxies on whatever Kodak stock they held in order to gain entree to the stockholders' meeting. The Unitarians voted to use the proxies for their entire Kodak stock to support FIGHT –– 5620 shares valued at over $700,000.
The wire services carried the story and news of the incident rapidly spread across the country. Individuals began sending in their proxies, and other church groups indicated they were prepared to follow the Unitarians' lead. By the purest accident, we'd stumbled onto a tactical gold mine. Politicians who saw major church denominations assigning us their proxies could envision them assigning us their votes as well; the church groups have vast constituencies in their congregations. Suddenly senators and representatives who hadn't returned our phone calls were ringing up and lending a sympathetic ear to my request for a senatorial investigation of Kodak's hiring practices.
As the proxies rolled in, the pressure began to build on Kodak –– and on other corporations as well. Executives of the top companies began seeking me out and trying to learn my intentions. I'd never seen the establishment so uptight before, and this convinced me that we had happened onto the cord that might open the golden curtain shielding the private sector from its public responsibilities. It obviously also convinced Kodak, because they soon caved in and recognized FIGHT as the official representative of the Rochester black community. Kodak has since begun hiring more blacks and training unskilled black workers, as well as inducing the city administration to deliver major concessions on education, housing, municipal services and urban renewal. It was our proxy tactic that made all this possible. It scared Kodak, and it scared Wall Street. It's our job now to relieve their tensions by fulfilling their fears.
PLAYBOY: What do you mean? Surely you don't expect to gain enough proxies to take control of any major corporation.
ALINSKY: No, despite all the crap about "people's capitalism," the dominant controlling stock in all major corporations is vested in the hands of a few people we could never get to. We're not even concerned about electing four or five board members to a 25–member board, which in certain cases would be theoretically feasible. They'd only be outvoted by management right down the line. We want to use the proxies as a means of social and political pressure against the megacorporations, and as a vehicle for exposing their hypocrisy and deceit.
The proxy tactic is also an invaluable means of gaining middle–class participation in radical causes. Instead of chasing Dow Chemical recruiters off campus, for example,student activists could organize and demand that the university administration turn over the Dow proxies in its portfolio to them. They'd refuse, but it would be a solid organizational issue, and one or two might even be forced to give in.By assigning their proxies, liberals can also continue attending cocktail parties while assuaging their troubled social consciences.
Proxies can become a springboard to other issues in organizing the middle class. Proxy participation on a large scale could ultimately mean the democratization of corporate America, and could result in the changing of these corporations' overseas operations, which would precipitate important shifts in our foreign policy. There's really no limit to the proxy potential. Pat Moynihan told me in Washington when he was still Nixon's advisor that "proxies for people would mean revolution –– they'll never let you get away with it." It will mean revolution, peaceful revolution, and we will get away with it in the years to come.
As I understand it, the SEC Proposed Rule 14a-11 rule (voted in 3-2) that would make proxy access even easier is currently on hold pending the outcome of legal objections from the business community. However, that rule does not seem to apply to the actions taken by religious groups above, so there is every reason to explore this tactic.
Soooo,seems to me that with all the conservative talk of an ownership society, we ought to take advantage of that ownership. This is one way to do it.
Recommended reading/listening/viewing for radicals:
The incomparable Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Online preview here . This is a practical guide to how to take power away from those who have it. The essential premise is that the Have’s advantage is a lot of money; their disadvantage is few people. The Have=Not’s are in the opposite situations. So Alinsky provides examples and guides on how to use the advantages of people over money. Most are easy to do, many absolutely hysterical, and all effective. See the O’Hare Airport Shit-In. (yes, you read that right. No spoilers here though, you’ll have to read the book)
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. by Robert Cialdini. This is the single most valuable book I have read on how to persuade and how to avoid being persuaded.
Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives, by George Lakoff. See also: Cognitive Policy Wonks and The Progressive Strategy Handbook Project
Frank Luntz: everything he’s written. He's a conservative message master, and you have to know the enemy. Remember the great scene in Patton, when the victorious general shouted: “Rommel! You magnificent son of a bitch! I READ YOUR BOOK!”
Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits, By Jason Salzman
The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections, By Catherine Shaw
How To Win A Local Election,by Lawrence Grey
The Opposition Research Handbook: Guide to Political Investigations
Guerrilla Marketing
Chompsky.Info Many of Noam Chompsky’s insightful and frightening analyses
Robert Newman’s History of Oil Thanks to
GreyHawk for recommending this.
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To see how the combined direct costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars affects you see the National Priorities Project's
costofwar.com and select your state and city.
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Build Infrastructure: Volunteer! List of State and Local Democratic Parties