Why dont we become the major shareholders?

[Ksec]

Its simple. The shareholders are the ones who the corporations work for so then why dont we as a party become shareholders who have the clout? We hold huge power with our capital but why arent we using it in ways like this?

Labor unions could become major shareholders with their money. With large holdings you become influential in the direction of the corporations. With that you could do whatever you wanted.

So why wouldnt this work?

[Vincardog]

1. Control is by for and to benefit the INSIDERS not the shareholders

[Flabbergasted]

2. Shareholders of....?

The government, a political party....? Just trying to more fully understand the idea?

[Ksec]

6. You could buy shares in any corporation

With enough , you become the controllers of that corporation. You could then direct them in any direction that would be beneficial for US. Today the corporations look for the cheapest labor , so they take their factories elsewhere. I happen to believe a company can treat its employess well and still make money for its shareholders. There are companies with this philosophy that are doing well.

You have nothing if nobody makes wages that make it able to buy your products. Apparently this is lost on most major corporations. Theyre killing their own customers by killing their jobs.

[Flabbergasted]

19. So you forma union of sorts?

The Union pays dues hires a board and invests in corporations?

[tecelote]

3. Sadly, this is the answer.

Americans do not realize the power of their dollar. They look for the best short term value for their dollar. A down trodden population has no choice.

However, you have a great point. Labor Unions should become stock holders. That is the real way to influence power within a corporation.

[Selatius]

4. You can't buy somebody's shares if they don't want to sell.

You can't buy when all the shares offered have already been bought up, and the owner of the shares has final say over whether he wants to sell, and if they pay good dividends, then chances are likely he will not want to part with his stock.

The Walton family is a perfect example. Even though Wal-Mart is technically a publicly traded company, I believe it's still private in the sense that the majority of the shares still belong to members of the family. Only a minority of shares are actually in the hands of third party people.

[Warpy]

5. What capital?

Most of us out here in workaday land are wondering where that next mortgage payment is coming from, whether to pay for heat or food, and hoping the hell the flu isn't bad enough to send us off to an urgent care because we can't afford all those damn copays.

As for uniting within the party, good luck. The party has told us for over 30 years that the base doesn't matter, that we'll just follow along like good puppy dogs while everything we worked for is turned to shit by greedy little men in expensive suits.

Uniting on a local scale to reform unions means all those old union battles will have to be fought again from the ground up because those greedy little men in expensive suits have no intention of following any of the labor laws.

Capital, my flabby ass.

[melissinha]

7. I once thought of that

but sadly like a previous poster warpy ..I have to say "with what capital?"

[AZBlue]

10. Thanks to Bush my income has plummeted.

But it's a great idea and if I had the $$ I'd definitely go in on a combined effort to overtake a corporation or two!!

[melissinha]

14. just thinking right now

if loads of DUers went in and bought one share of some specific company at a strategic time to affect its performance.... what could happen (I really know nothing about trading) and maybe dump them at the perfect time.....

[Bake]

16. 80,000 shares - not even a drop in the corporate bucket

If every single DUer did that, it wouldn't make a ripple. Most publicly traded corporations have millions of shares outstanding.

Pension funds oftentimes ARE the largest shareholders in many corporations, because they have millions of dollars to invest. Unfortunately, they seem to share the same "quarterly earnings" myopia that the rest of the investing world has.

Bake

[HereSince1628]

8. looks good on paper, but there are fewer and fewer

jobs where a working class type has discretionary investable money. And then buying controling shares of your employers business is going to mean that the union folks have an awful lot of their eggs in a single basket.

Have you noticed how many failed companies have ruined retirement plans, and end up paying pennies on the dollar of worker benefits because the retirement plans weren't fully vested and diversified?

[Ksec]

11. But this would help stop the downward trend in wages and bennies.

We have loads of capital . Maybe not singly but you put a dollar into a pot and a million other people put up a buck, you have a million dollars. Just running this by everyone. I read a story a few days ago about a union worker who made a difference in a company because he was a shareholder that supposedly had some clout. His shares gave him a voice in the direction they went. Ill dig that up/

[Ksec]

13. saw this on MyDD

Union Shareholders Crackdown On Executive Excesses:

"Last week, under pressure from one of its big shareholders, the Coca-Cola Company adopted a new policy requiring that its stockholders approve any future executive severance agreements that amount to at least 2.99 times the recipient's annual salary and bonus. The shareholder forcing the issue was the International Brotherhood of Teamsters General Fund, which raised the proposal at Coca-Cola's annual meeting last April... Before the shareholder vote, Coca-Cola's management recommended a 'no' vote on the proposal...But with more than 40 percent of the shares cast in favor of the proposal, Coca-Cola's board approved the change in October."
This is a big win - and highlights the power of shareholder activism in helping to put a leash on out of control corporate power. Shareholders are, after all, the owners of the company. But don't think for a second greedy corporate executives aren't going to fight back against their companies' owners - as I noted a few weeks ago, executives are actually using company money to begin surveillance operations against shareholders they think might cause them trouble. Stay tuned - the battle between shareholders and executives is quietly getting underway.

[Selatius]

17. Ultimately, there's not enough capital to take over many corporations

Most shares are already owned by people other than workers. As I said above, if they're making money off the dividends of those shares, they will not part with them willingly.

[HereSince1628]

22. Not true. To sell a product/service you need a willing buyer

international competition as it now stands is setting the value of labor and benefits for increasingly many types of work because thier products and services are now available to this country.

Our manufactuting workers are competing with Chinese who get paid 25-35 cents an hour! You can live in this America on that salary. Sure their salaries will rise but not as fast as ours will fall. And its the same in many more technical careers where international companies can contract with foreign workers to do engineering, software, scientific research, legal work etc. Surgeries are now being outsourced by US patients who will go to a country where hospital services are cheaper.

Labor pay and benefits is in a plunge in the US because our level isn't competitive in a world market.

Even if we can increase productivity several fold it wouldn't be enough to compete with production costs over seas, and we end up displacing workers, usually older workers.

[politicaholic]

9. If unions were share holders there would be a conflict...

major layoffs come as a result of losses and downturns in the stock prices.

You're on the right track though, there should be a series of Dem mutual funds that buy shares of companies that pollute and indulge in unfair labor practices.

[davidinalameda]

12. fantastic idea

I've thought for years that progressives and liberals should begin an investment fund so we can be shareholders in some of these less than progressive companies like ExxonMobile that keeps denying their employees domestic partner benefits

the idea wouldn't be to make money but to change policy

[melissinha]

15. OR check buyblue.org

and buy from blue companies and if possible, buy stock in blue companies. Boycott all the reds.

Its not hard, I just don't go to WalMart, Wendy's, Exxon (as much as I can I go to Citgo)....

www.buyblue.org

[Bake]

18. Challengers usually LOSE in a proxy fight, too.

Here's how it works: the CEO/Chairman of the Board nominates his cronies to be directors. The corporate officers then report to the CEO, who reports to the Board of Directors. If the directors rubber-stamp everything the CEO asks for, they get to stay on the board, i.e., the gravy train.

Suppose a major shareholder - a pension fund, e.g. - gets fed up. Its only recourse is to boot out directors who don't do their jobs in overseeing the corporation's officers (some of whom may be directors themselves). To do that, it has to propose an alternate slate of directors, and GET THEM ELECTED. That means a proxy fight, unless the major shareholder is in fact the MAJORITY shareholder (which is rare). Entrenched management USUALLY wins a proxy fight because it has access to shareholder lists, which it need not share with anyone else. Since most shareholders don't actually show up at the annual meeting (where the directors are elected), management gets their authorization to vote FOR them - their proxies.

Of course, there is that pesky tool called the shareholders' derivative lawsuit, which can be used in particularly egregious cases; but they're hard to prosecute and hard to win.

Bake

[kerry-is-my-prez]

20. We need to start with the media companies....

n/t

[WilliamPitt]

21. Take Diebold, for instance

The cost of 51% of the shares is several billion dollars. 51% is not even available, even if you had the money; most of the shares aretied up in mutual funds, etc.

[Cleita]

23. If you decided to take over a company by buying out as much

stock as you can get your hands on, you still have to have stockholders who are willing to sell. Often controlling interest stockholders don't want to lose control and won't sell. Also, there is something about hostile takeovers that I'm not familiar with how it works, but I don't know if it would work for the reasons you want. If so, I think someone may have already tried to do so. There's a reason it hasn't happened.

[Poppyseedman]

24. The market cap for Haliburton is only 31.51 Billion

At $61.00 a share today, that's 516 million shares to buy up.

I'm in for a 15 shares. How about you?