Generally, I would venture to guess that annual meetings of stockholders are staid affairs, where a hotel meeting room is filled with a few people interested enough to hear what the CEO has to say about the company's prospects for the next year. Could be real fun times, I don't know...I have owned stock in several companies over the last 5 years or so, but I've just sent in my proxy and voted my shares that way.
(As an aside, I have a good method for picking people for the boards of directors of the company. I look up who they donate political contributions to - if they donate to Democrats they are O-U-T as far as my vote!)
Anyway, the Wal-Mart annual meeting has got to be a doozy if I believe this Washington Times article. Remember, it only takes one share and you can go to their meeting. So I'm betting every anti-Wal-Mart creep in the country held their nose and bought one share just to go to the stockholder meeting. Interesting how the union thugs got in...obviously their pension fund decided to invest there, or they now own a piece of their non-union competitor.
So the UFCW wants Wal-Mart to "sacrifice profits to help ensure its workers live above the poverty line." Obviously Paul Blank, the leader for the group "Wake Up Wal-Mart" has never run a business. I'm guessing he's got some cushy UFCW job and is a union lifer. That has to be true, because Mr. Blank doesn't understand that the aim for a business is not to employ people at the living wage du jour, but to make a profit for the owner; and if the business is large enough, dividends for the shareholders. Profit is made by selling goods and services at a higher income than the cost of producing or supplying those goods and services...thus it's to the advantage of business to hold labor costs down as they can.
However, that becomes a balancing act - if the wages are too high, then the company has to raise prices and lose market share, which eventually leads to employee dismissal. If wages are set too low, the company may make more money short-term, but sooner or later they lose good employees because they are underpaid. (A simplistic picture because of myriad other factors, but that's the gist of the argument.)
It's obvious Wal-Mart has found a balance there because they have a lot of employees , presumably the vast majority of whom are happy because they continue to work there, and the corporation makes a lot of money - all without the hindrance of unions. And because unions are a business too, and they've seen their market share declining as they price themselves out of labor markets nationwide, Big Labor screams and cries and tries to get their liberal allies in government to slant the playing field toward their side. In the case of Wal-Mart, you get "Fair Share" in Maryland, a bill the unions see as a model for adoption in all the other states.
I suppose if I was only a blogger and didn't have a real job (no, I can't sit here in my pj's all day) I'd go to Arkansas in 2006 after buying one share of Wal-Mart and enjoy the spectacle, maybe argue with some union thugs while I'm there. Gee, it would be like old times, working the polls on Election Day in Toledo, Ohio with my friendly neighborhood Teamster/UAW Jeep goon. And as a bonus, I could see Martha Burk in person and ask her whether she can get Tiger Woods's autograph for me next time she goes to Augusta and harasses a perfectly fine golf club. Yes, she's there too because she thinks women and minorities get screwed on stock options.
But since I do work for a living, I suppose I'll just have to stay around here. Maybe I can buy a share of Perdue (the poultry company, headquarted right here in Salisbury) and find out if all the animal rights wackos come here for the shareholder meetings. That could be fun too!
So I have a suggestion for the companies who are involved in some controversy or another: open up your shareholder meetings and sell spectator tickets! That could be a nice revenue stream once "World Wrestling Entertainment" finishes its plummet out of the public eye.
Also, on a totally unrelated subject: there's another blog linked for your reading pleasure called Regime Change Iran. I added it a few days ago, check it out. We can always use another Middle East ally, particularly one that sits on a crapload of oil.
