Usda: Us Cattle Herd Dwindles To 75-Year Low

By Victor Reklaitis

Tyson Foods, Amazon and other big companies are drawing shareholder proposals from investors like the Sisters of St. Francis Charitable Trust and a Baptist group

Tyson Foods, Amazon and other big companies are facing pressure from some shareholders to provide reports about how they're being affected by the Trump administration's immigration policies.

After months of relative silence, business leaders are increasingly weighing in on the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Earlier this week, a group of business leaders in Minnesota, including the chief executives of Target (TGT) and UnitedHealth (UNH), encouraged local and federal leaders to "find real solutions" to the tensions in the state. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, told his employees that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is "going too far." Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook told his staff it's "a time for de-escalation."

But other companies may not get to choose how they respond. Investors are using shareholder proposals to push some S&P 500 SPX companies to at least catalog the impact of the White House's immigration policies on their businesses.

"These ramped-up immigration-enforcement tactics and changes in policies really foment fear in communities, among workers and companies," said Aaron Acosta, a lawyer who works for an organization called Investor Advocates for Social Justice. "They're not good for economic growth, and I think investors know this, but I think companies and investors are not saying much on this point."

Acosta's organization and its partners have championed a shareholder proposal related to the risks of new immigration policies for Tyson Foods (TSN), with the Sisters of St. Francis Charitable Trust acting as the lead filer. That proposal, which is expected to get a vote on Feb. 5 at the giant meat-processing company's annual general meeting, asks for Tyson to conduct and publish an assessment of the anticipated impact of recent changes in immigration policy on the company's finances and operations.

The shareholder proposal "could set a positive precedent for others to speak up against the actually negative economic impacts of this policy, and what it's doing for companies, how it's exacerbating labor shortages, how it's actually not good for business," said Acosta, program director at IASJ.

Acosta says IASJ and its partners have had back-and-forths with Tyson for a couple of decades, including over worker rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now they're directing their activism toward how the Trump administration's immigration policies could affect the company, whose workforce has typically included many foreign-born people.

Tyson is just one of the big public companies facing pressure as activist shareholders who are focused in large part on social issues, rather than exclusively on the bottom line, push them to talk about the impact of President Donald Trump's approach toward immigration.

The proposals come amid some evidence that the immigration crackdown is having an impact on businesses across the country. The parent company for Corona and Modelo beers, Constellation Brands (STZ), has said economic stress faced by its large segment of Hispanic consumers is weighing on demand. Coca-Cola (KO) last year noted a pullback in spending among Hispanic consumers, particularly near the U.S.-Mexico border, and off-price apparel chain Burlington Stores (BURL) flagged a similar trend.

'This is a huge business risk'

Zevin Asset Management has led a shareholder proposal that calls for Home Depot (HD), which has drawn immigration raids at its retail locations, to issue a report on the data-privacy and other risks stemming from the retailer's partnership with a surveillance company, Flock Safety. That proposal has come after a startup news outlet, 404 Media, reported that ICE has worked with local police to access a Flock system for tracking vehicles by their license plates.

"We want institutional investors to realize that this is a huge business risk," said Marcela Pinilla, Zevin's director of sustainable investing. Zevin is waiting to find out if its proposal will get a vote. Home Depot typically has held its annual meetings in May.

Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Walmart (WMT) also have attracted shareholder proposals, with SOC Investment Group saying it is seeking reports on how current immigration policy and enforcement are affecting the three companies, which hold their annual meetings in May or June. SOC has noted each company has relied on skilled foreign workers who use the U.S. government's H1-B visa program, which is being significantly reshaped. In addition, Amazon and Walmart could be affected by new policies that are likely limiting the number of immigrants working in agriculture and trucking, according to SOC.

Amazon is facing another shareholder proposal led by American Baptist Home Mission Societies that seeks a report on whether the company's sales of artificial-intelligence and cloud technologies to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are in alignment with the company's internal policies for the responsible use of such technologies. "In our opinion, there's definitely a misalignment between what the company espouses and what's actually happening with their technologies and services, and so we're really hoping that Amazon can acknowledge that and effectively address those cases of misalignment," said IASJ's Acosta, who has been working with the Baptist group and other partners on the proposal.

Shareholder proposals help draw attention

Shareholder proposals tied to the effects of Trump's immigration policies are likely to have some impact, but most of them probably won't win the support of the majority of a big company's investors, according to Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional insights at Morningstar, a provider of investment research and management.

"Getting a shareholder resolution onto a corporate proxy ballot is an effective means of drawing greater attention to a particular issue," Stewart said. Most of them don't get 50% of the vote, especially in recent years, but support levels of 20% to 40% "may be a success from the standpoint of demonstrating that there is interest from institutional shareholders on these kinds of issues."

Shareholder proposals "kind of reached a high point" in 2021 and 2022 amid "consciousness of the effects of climate change," as well as the #MeToo movement and the killing of George Floyd, Stewart said. Activity "seems to have tailed off," in part because a lot of the things that were asked for have often been implemented by companies, so the remaining issues "tend to focus on much more narrow areas" where there's "a much wider range of opinions," he told MarketWatch. He said another key factor is a move last year by the Trump administration's Securities and Exchange Commission to allow companies to exclude a greater proportion of shareholder resolutions from their proxy ballots.

A Tyson spokesperson said the company has reverified the work authorizations of employees affected by recent changes in immigration laws and has terminated those no longer permitted to work in the U.S. Tyson has prepared and implemented contingency, hiring and retention plans as needed to maintain its workforce and operations, according to the spokesperson.

A Walmart spokeswoman said the company plans to give its response to shareholder proposals in its proxy statement and provided a link to its report on environmental, social and governance issues. Walmart's proxy statements, which are basically briefings before annual general meetings, typically have come in April.

Amazon said in a statement that it values hearing from its shareholders and believes that effective corporate governance includes year-round engagement. The company also said many shareholder proposals largely repeat prior years' proposals and do not consider the actions that the company is already taking or the unique and evolving nature of its operations. "In most cases, we believe the costs of implementing the proposals significantly outweigh the benefits, and that the proposals do not enhance or create shareholder value, or we disagree with how a proposal seeks to dictate how we approach or report on the issue in prescriptive or unrealistic detail," the statement said.

Alphabet and Home Depot didn't respond to requests for comment about immigration-related proposals from their shareholders.

-Victor Reklaitis

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