Bullies of the Boardroom

SOURCE

Phil Kerpen, a policy director for the benign-sounding right-wing think tank Americans for Prosperity, seems outraged that working people might seek to have any influence at all on their own working lives:

The biggest threat to free-market capitalism today may not be coming from the Democratic majority in Congress, but from the Republican majority at the Securities and Exchange Commission. At issue is shareholder access to company proxy statements, a seemingly esoteric subject, but one that has profound implications for economic freedom in the United States.
The SEC purportedly is considering a rule that would allow shareholders with as little as a 3 percent stake in a company to nominate directors to that company, with the requirement that those directors be include on the company’s proxy statement. The result would be special interests — primarily labor unions through their pension funds — gaining seats on corporate boards...

To understand what this is really about you need only look to the plaintiffs in the case that triggered this situation. By way of their pension funds, unions have big stakes in virtually every significant corporation today. A shareholder-access rule would allow them to achieve through the backdoor what they have been unable to accomplish through honest collective bargaining.

I mean the nerve of those pesky union people! There are an army of lawyers who belong to a multi-billion dollar union-busting industry, that, with its allies in the Republican appointed NLRB has successfully attacked unions in this country to the point where only a handful remain with any real power. Now, their backs to the wall, the Teamsters and the UAW are looking to at least voice their concerns to the corporate billionaires who have gotten rich off the labors of their membership. Through buying millions of dollars of stock, these unions feel, they at least have bought themselves a ticket to the show put on by their corporate bosses.

Who do they think they are? Investors with rights? No, they need to be put in their place these sweaty worker types! How dare they enter the opulent boardrooms of those who rake in billions of profit from their work! The arrogance of people like Mr. Kerpen is astounding. How anyone who works in this country can vote for Republicans, who serve the interests of these greedy corporate pirates, is hard to fathom...