The AFL-CIO is opposing Steve Jobs’ reelection to Disney’s board of directors.
The AFL-CIO, which holds about 3.8 million Disney shares, says Jobs’ poor health, plus his job as CEO of Apple, make him a bad choice for Disney’s board. Jobs is likely to be reelected at Disney’s annual meeting on Wednesday.
Jobs is the largest individual sharholder with 7% of Disney’s stock, awarded after the 2006 purchase of Pixar.
The union isn’t the only group opposing Jobs. It is joined by an institutional investment group that is also questioning Jobs’s reelection to the Disney board because of his health.
Institutional Shareholder Services notes that Jobs has attended less than 75% of board meetings in the last three years, and wonders if Jobs should be reelected.
“Jobs’ poor attendance in three of the past four years, and recent leave of absence from his primary employer, raises questions about his ability to fulfill his responsibilities as a director of the company,” ISS wrote in a note to shareholders.
ISS stopped short of rejecting Jobs but said shareholders deserve greater disclosure about his ability to function as a director.
Los Angeles Times: Advisory firm questions Steve Jobs’ reelection to Disney board
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
12 responses to “AFL-CIO Opposes Steve Jobs’s Reelection To Disney Board”
But then how would Steve live? He only gets $1 a year from Apple, he lives on Disney stocks
Of course they do. They are parasites and Jobs is a producer, so the two must always oppose each other.
I’d like to see Sergey Brin replace jobs on Disney’s board. Also, it needs to be said that a member of the Disney family needs to be in higher management.
It would be a surprise if the AFL-CIO did not oppose Steve Jobs. Unions are a thing of the past and serve almost no purpose other than to slow down the economy.
Dumb! When Jobs was ousted from Apple in the 80’s he sold all his stock except for a single share. Think he wouldn’t do the same with his 7% of Disney?
is this typical right wing parroting, or do have actual examples of all unions serving almost no purpose other than… …that bullshit you just said?