[Contact form] Interventions for Chicago's Publicly Tra

[nonlinear]

Roustabout sent a message using the contact form at http://occupychi.org/contact.

Bring the movement to the belly of the beast by intervening at shareholder meetings of Chicago's publicly traded companies. Protests outside the meetings are effective for PR, but getting inside provides equal if not greater effect. To buy a ticket to the meeting, you need to buy a share. Putting a proposal on the meeting agenda costs, however, generally $2,000 in shares investment. Would buying stock in, say, Boeing or Caterpillar be sacrilegeous to the movement? No - the upside (infiltrating the corporate ethos) far outways the downside (putting a few pennies into the pockets of traders).

I can't claim to know the full extent of options/restrictions of shareholder activism, but I do know that shareholder activists have signifanctly changed corporate policies over the years, including, in the 80s, divestment from Apartheid and policy changes for environmental issues. It would be one of the many forces bending the arc of justice.

A shareholder activism team, comprised of those among us experienced in corporate governance, could develop strategies, recommend activist investments, publish shareholder proposal wording for vote at GAs, and dovetail into direct action protest schedules.

A quick search of publicly traded companies in Chicago finds only a 2007 table: http://www.chicagotraveler.com/pdfs/chicago-largest-public-companies-2007-list.pdf.

I'm sure there are more comprehensive, up-to-date data publicly available somewhere. Linking the companies with their annual meeting dates and locations should be a piece of cake.

Roustabout