AFSCME Urges Shareholders to Remedy Excess Pay at Johnson & Johnson

Recommends Vote against Executive Compensation

WASHINGTON, March 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, AFSCME is recommending that shareholders of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) vote against the ratification of executive compensation at the company's annual meeting on April 26, 2012. 

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AFSCME advocated giving shareholders the right to vote on executive pay.  "This is shareowners' second year to use Say on Pay to register their disapproval of unwarranted CEO pay," said AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee, whose 1.6 million members participate in public pension funds with combined assets worth over $1.7 trillion. "The JNJ Board needs to get its hearing checked.  After almost 40% of its shareholders voted against CEO pay last year, they are still not listening."

Johnson & Johnson paid Chairman and CEO William Weldon nearly $27 million for 2011 in spite of ongoing drug recalls, product liability and litigation expenses that helped to decrease JNJ's consolidated 2011 earnings by $4.5 billion.[1]  JNJ also benchmarks its executive pay above the pay of its peers.  "This might work for Garrison Keillor," added McEntee, "but we are clearly not in Lake Wobegon here.  Bill Weldon does not deserve pay far above his peers after Johnson & Johnson's reputation has been damaged and shareholder value destroyed on his watch. Excessive pay is a disease, and the prescription for investors is to just 'Vote No.'"

Despite the continuing product recalls, mediocre 2011 results, ongoing lawsuits, government probes into products and marketing and a high vote against the JNJ say on pay vote in 2011, Weldon's pay remained impervious to the bad news, dropping from a reported total of $28.7M in 2010 down to $27M for 2011.

The background material on Johnson & Johnson is available at the following url: http://www.afscme.org/news/press-room/press-releases/2012/20120327-AFSCME-Johnson-and-Johnson-background.pdf

AFSCME's 1.6 million members provide the vital services that make America happen. With members in hundreds of different occupations — from nurses to corrections officers, child care providers to sanitation workers — AFSCME advocates for fairness in the workplace, excellence in public services and prosperity and opportunity for all working families.

[1] 2011 JNJ 10-K, p. 29.

SOURCE American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees