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The Forum > Article Comments > Overpaid and under performing > Comments

Overpaid and under performing : Comments

By Klaas Woldring, published 1/12/2008

Would a broad-based employee share ownership scheme curb excessive executive remuneration?

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Don't see our senior executives doing this:

http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_u/UBS_Warburg/20081128_ubs_executives.html

Paying back there bonuses (UBS).

Actually, emplpoyees are at risk, if the economy worsens. Not just in the usual sense. Also, the Boards will sack long-term employees as Westpac did in the 1990s, to asset strip Superannuation Funds.
Posted by Oliver, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 12:59:22 PM
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Corporate owners and officers must be liable for all the harms they cause.

In 1886, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a private corporation is a person and entitled to the legal rights and protections the Constitutions affords to any person. Because the Constitution makes no mention of corporations, it is a fairly clear case of the Court's taking it upon itself to rewrite the Constitution.
Far more remarkable, however, is that the doctrine of corporate personhood, which subsequently became a cornerstone of corporate law, was introduced into this 1886 decision without argument. According to the official case record, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of argument in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company http://www.ratical.com/corporations/SCvSPR1886.html that, “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”
The court reporter duly entered into the summary record of the Court's findings that;
The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section one of the Fourteen Amendment (ensures slaves’ freedom after the civil war) to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Thus it was that a two-sentence assertion by a single judge elevated corporations to the status of persons under the law, prepared the way for the rise of global corporate rule, and thereby changed the course of history.

This contradiction has not been directly addressed by the courts.

If the corporation powers are dubious, and remember, our Constitution is base on the US model. Does this mean the Australian corporation powers are based on false assumptions?

What a gross irony. That an amendment which was made to ensure people would have equal rights can be used to strip workers of right 150 years later.
Posted by lorry, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 1:56:35 PM
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Companies quoted on the stock exchanges of Australia and a lot more who are not, are all privately owned.

The owners of those companies are the share holders who “hold the shares”

Directors remuneration packages are determined by the board of directors.

The board of directors are appointed by the share holders.

It is no one else’s business, beyond those directors and shareholders how much any director, chief executive or ordinary staff member is paid.

I did note recently, Malcolm Turnbull was talking about making the decision on executive remuneration schemes more accountable to the share holders, through I presume a vote at the AGM.

This would probably be a good thing but let us not pretend, the ‘wealth’ of a business and its distribution thereof is anything but a private matter.

Being the private matter for the share holders of the business, it ceases to be something which is up for common gossip among politicians, political lobbyists, public commentators or those who feel obliged to offer their opinion in matters clearly beyond their ambit of rightful concern.

As for employee share schemes, there are many in operation throughout the world and I believe are a good thing for encouraging staff loyalty and interest to the benefit of both the staff and the business. However, such matters do not benefit from intercession by governments through either enforced ownership or tax break promotional support.
Posted by Col Rouge, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 1:59:18 PM
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lorry,

Of the 23 civilizations Anold Toynbee identified commencing with Sumer, Caroll Quigley noted that all that have declined have demonstrated the inclination by the rich and powerful to maintain the status quo, rather than face changing circumstances.

In the 1930s, most Oz Banks recognized that the sovereign needs of the Australlia, exceeded the needs of coporations. Since then there has been a shift from market capitalism towards corporate nationalism, wherein the free market does not operate. Corporations and their under performing executives must be allowed to fail.
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 3:03:27 PM
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