James K. Cummings, Trustee + Ruth Cummings, Trustee
After more than a decade of debate and a record-setting proceeding that attracted nearly 4 million public comments, the time to settle the Net Neutrality question has arrived. This week, I will circulate to the members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed new rules to preserve the internet as an open platform for innovation and free expression. This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles, marketplace experience, and public input received over the last several months.
Investors in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), including the Nathan Cummings Foundation, are once again pressing the company’s board of directors to report on the business risks arising from the company’s opposition to open Internet and network neutrality principles.
James K. Cummings, Trustee + M. Annette Ensley, Former Director of Administration & Human Resources
Latin Post recently spoke to Ai-jen Poo, the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and lead organizer and founder of Domestic Workers United, an organization of Caribbean, Latina and African nannies, housekeepers and elderly caregivers in New York. And Ai-jen Poo is also the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “Genius” Award and organizer of the Caring Across Generations summit.
“Five bigwig institutional shareholders want to force Oracle to make radical changes to the way it pays it top three executives: executive chairman and CTO Larry Ellison and co-CEOs Safra Catz and Mark Hurd.
They are concerned that Oracle’s board of directors isn’t independent enough from management and ‘insufficient board accountability and poorly designed compensation programs create significant risks for shareholders.’
Of Oracle’s 11 directors, three of them still earn their living at Oracle (Ellison, Catz, and Hurd), and one of them is the company’s former CFO and chairman…”
The Nathan Cummings Foundation’s shareholder activity at Oracle Corp. has made the news after Oracle’s decision to tie executive pay packages to the company’s performance. Also mentioned in the news article is an NCF led shareholder resolution seeking independent board appointments at the comany’s annual meetings.
At the signing ceremony, Brown said that the legislation—expected to bring paid sick leave to most of the 6.5 million Californians currently without it—“helps people—whether it’s a person working at a car wash or McDonald’s or 7-Eleven.”
Well there’s one group of people it doesn’t help: home health care workers…
Stosh Cotler, the CEO of NCF Grantee Bend the Arc, has written a powerful commentary in the Washington Post about why the Jewish community should care about what’s happening in Ferguson, especially as we head into the month of the Jewish high holidays.
Back in June, Barry C. Lynn, senior fellow at Nathan Cummings Foundation grantee the New America Foundation, was able to sit down with Thomas Frank from Salon.com for a facinating discussion on today’s monoplies and how they impact the discussion on inequality.
Over the past year, shareholder activists racked up a list of accomplishments that would be the envy of many foundations.
They secured agreements from some of the world’s largest companies to set targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Dear Rupert Murdoch: Please Eliminate Your Company’s Dual-Class Share Structure
October 18, 2013
In this piece from the International Business Times, NCF makes the case that long-term shareholder value is still at risk at Rupert Murdoch’s companies due to fundamental corporate governance problems.
Pensions & Investments, reported on the Nathan Cummings Foundation’s work to improve shareholder rights at 21st Century Fox, whose shareholder meeting was this week:
Darden Restaurants, Inc., one of America’s largest restaurant conglomerates and the owner of Olive Garden, Red Lobster and many other well-known brands, faced an unprecedented shareholder revolt led in part by a proxy access proposal from the Nathan Cummings Foundation.