Teamsters To FedEx: 'Stop Paying Executives' Personal Taxes'

Leading Proxy Voting Advisor Recommends Support for Proposal to End Tax Gross-Ups; and Shareholder Proposals to Reform Executive Pay, Corporate Governance and Reporting

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International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Sep 18, 2015, 11:20 ET

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Sept. 18, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), the nation's leading proxy voting advisor, recommends FedEx shareholders vote for a Teamster-sponsored shareholder proposal aimed at reforming the company's executive compensation. The proposal urges the company to stop paying the personal taxes on behalf of the senior executive officers.

A review of ISS research indicates that FedEx's practice of paying executives' taxes on restricted stock awards is not a common practice among U.S. corporations and that this practice only serves to erode the goals of aligning executive pay with performance.

According to the company's 2015 proxy statement, FedEx paid four senior executives a total of more than $5.2 million over the past three fiscal years to alleviate their tax burden from restricted stock awards.

"FedEx needs to emerge from the dark ages of executive compensation. While the company continues to pay millions to cover the personal taxes for the top executives on their restricted stock awards, its workers face unaffordable medical benefits and an unsecure retirement," said Ken Hall, General Secretary-Treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. "It's time the FedEx Board eliminate this outdated perk, as so many other U.S. companies have done."

ISS also recommends that FedEx investors vote for shareholder proposals calling for independent leadership of the Board; enhanced transparency in reporting corporate political spending and lobbying; and to adopt a clawback policy for recoupment of incentive and/or stock compensation to senior executives to mitigate executive pay related risk at the company.

"This year FedEx shareholders are sending a clear message to the company, 'we demand accountability in corporate governance, executive compensation, and reporting,'" Hall said.

The FedEx shareholder meeting will be held Sept. 28, 2015, at the company's corporate headquarters in Memphis, Tenn.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:
Kara Deniz, (202) 624-6911
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SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters