In Reply to: Resolution for Stockholders Meeting. posted by J.M.Howell on 04 November 2005 at 09:35:23:
I have to say that Leas is a regular contributor of resolutions to IBM stockholder meetings, and none of them has ever been passed. His latest resolution seems particularly badly worded.
It's not clear where the resolution ends and where the supporting evidence begins. When he writes 'age discrimination ... will be ended', is that a statement of fact or is it Leas's wish? If it's part of the resolution, shouldn't the 'will' be a 'shall' or a 'should'?
Leas's explanation is hard to follow. When he says that '275,000 IBM employees on average get ... $1,114 each', it doesn't sound correct. If the 275,000 covers just employees (rather than retirees as well), that's virtually the entire company. I can't believe that the settlement affects IBMers much beyond the borders of the USA.
In summary, Leas's resolution can be dismissed for poor English and/or poor math. It needs re-drafting. He's got the time to do so.
Jo
: Below is the 2006 Resolution on Pension and Retirement Medical. It
: describes the collusive settlement under which the average employee
: gets a total of $1114 while the class attorneys pocket $88.5 million.
: If you would like to cosponsor the resolution the deadline is next
: Monday, November 7 at 5pm so please submit this week. You can easily
: cosponsor by email. Simply cut and paste the following into an email
: fill in your name and addres and equiserve number if you have it, and
: email it to corpsecy@us.ibm.com
: Please add me as a cosponsor of the 2006 Resolution on Pension and
: Retirement Medical.
: I own shares of IBM stock and you should have the record. My equiserve
: account number is ________________ (if known).
: Name____________________________
: Address_________________________
: ________________________________
: Resolution on Pension and Retirement Medical
: by James Marc Leas for the year 2006 IBM annual meeting
: Stockholders ask the Board to adopt the following policy:
: Age discrimination in retirement policies will be ended by
: allowing all employees,regardless of age, to choose the promised
: pension and retirement medical insurance under the terms in effect
: before IBM adopted changes in 1995 and 1999.
: On July 31, 2003, a Federal District Court in Illinois ruled that the
: cash balance pension plan IBM adopted in 1999 and an earlier plan IBM
: adopted in 1995 both violated federal retirement law because they
: discriminated on the basis of age.
: Having considered the fully developed arguments on both sides, the
: federal district court declared that IBM's "1999 cash balance formula
: violates the literal terms of the Employee Retirement Income Security
: Act. IBM's own age discrimination analysis illustrates the problem."
: From IBM's own documents the court also concluded that "IBM proceeded
: with the cash balance plan with open eyes and was fully informed of
: the consequences of the litigation that was sure to come."
: Confirming employee calculations, the court said that the cash balance
: plan would "cause reductions in retirement pay of up to 47% for older
: workers." Many employees calculated their pension losses in the
: hundreds of thousands of dollars.
: A settlement agreement approved by the district court in August, 2005
: provides that 275,000 IBM employees on average get a total of only
: $1,114 each.
: Under the settlement agreement class attorneys get $88.5 million.
: In my opinion the settlement agreement that returns each employee so
: little, gives class attorneys so much, and lets IBM off the hook, is
: collusive: the settlement agreement did not end the age
: discrimination, it ratified the age discrimination.
: The changes IBM implemented in 1999 created an unprecedented
: groundswell of dissent among IBM employees. Covered by national media,
: employee meetings around the country led to a Senate hearing chaired
: by Senator James Jeffords, stockholder resolutions, union organizing,
: and the class action law suit that declared IBM guilty of age
: discrimination.
: The protest campaign led IBM to partially back down, allowing about
: 35,000 additional employees to choose between the pension plans.
: Unlike the class action lawsuit, that protest campaign produced
: substantial gains for each of those employees.
: IBM boosted the profit report as a result of its 1995 and 1999
: changes--even though no money was transferred into the company based
: on an accounting rule treatment of the pension plan. The court
: acknowledged that $1 billion--13% of IBM's net income--came from this
: accounting rule treatment in 2001. IBM executive pay is tied to the
: report of profit as elevated by this accounting rule boost to income.
: In addition, the August 1, 2003 New York Times noted that some of the
: savings to the pension plan "was to be used to create pensions for
: executives." IBM enacted a separate "top hat" pension plan for
: executives in 1998.