(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) shareholders voted down all 15 resolutions at the company’s annual general meeting on Friday. However, an investor-led proposal to review the company’s use of plastic got 49 percent of the vote.
It was the only idea that came close to getting approval from 51 percent of the participants. Investors voted against resolutions that questioned the company’s policies on things like how it treats its employees and how it handles non-disclosure agreements.
Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder and executive chairman, does control about 13% of the company’s voting stock. This makes it harder to get a majority of investors to back a plan.
Forty percent of people agreed with the idea of a report on whether Amazon’s cloud, surveillance, and other features violate human rights. But 87 percent of the people who voted didn’t want Amazon to look into worker safety.
Only 39% of the votes were in favor of a resolution about workers’ joining a union, but 47% of the votes were in favor of a report about whether Amazon’s lobbying activities were in the best interests of the shareholders.
A move to look at Amazon’s facial recognition technology was backed by 41% of the shareholders, while a report asking for more information on gender and race-based pay was only backed by 29%.
The resolutions don’t have to be followed, but companies usually do something if 30–40% of the people who vote for them agree.
Separately, investors supported by a large margin the company’s plans to approve executive pay, vote on director nominees, and think about a stock split.
