To that point, for the 2015 proxy season, BlackRock voted against “16 percent of management proposals related to compensation overall,” said Sweeney, and 162 directors serving on compensation committees.
Yet in his shareholder resolution, Silberstein argues that BlackRock more often supports compensation committee members while voting against company management on say-on-pay proposals.
In BlackRock’s case, As You Sow may have cherry-picked its statistic regarding the 2015 say-on-pay proxy votes — while the company did oppose just 3 percent of the companies in the report’s data set of 99 votes, BlackRock opposed 16 percent of the more than 12,400 say-on-pay votes it cast worldwide.
Yet BlackRock wasn’t alone in its low showing within As You Sow’s data set: Vanguard also opposed just 3 percent of the "overpaid" compensation packages.
“Too often, the frequency with which investors vote against management is used as the yardstick for measuring whether we're doing enough to promote good governance,” said David Hoffman, a Vanguard spokesperson, in a written statement. “In fact, voting is only part of the story. As we've said before, we are often able to accomplish as much, or more, through dialogue, where we can express specific, nuanced views and concerns, as we can through the ballot, where we have a binary, yes/no choice.”
TIAA's voting was little better, posting a 4 percent opposition rate.
“We believe our approach to executive compensation — evaluating companies on a case-by-case basis and conducting direct engagement — is the most effective way to support practices that reward sustainable shareholder value,” said a TIAA spokesperson in an e-mailed statement.
As You Sow didn’t pan the entire mutual fund industry. Companies like Dimensional and Pimco, which each opposed 43 percent of the pay proposals in the report’s data set, and Charles Schwab, whcih voted against 35 percent, were held out as examples of improving corporate governance policies. On average, asset managers rejected 22 percent of the “overpaid” CEO compensation packages proposed by management.
“Most companies are at least considering their votes now,” Landis Weaver says, also acknowledging socially responsible fund managers like Calvert Investments and public pension funds for high levels of say-on-pay opposition to the ‘overpaid’ compensation packages. “They’re acknowledging that their voting is a responsibility. The reason you see 22 percent as the average is because of companies like BlackRock , TIAA and Vanguard.”