The pension fund of the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers has sued Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), claiming the company paid their executives too much money, and are seeking to recover some of it for their shareholders.
This isn’t the first time Goldman has been sued in regard to pay, as a suit close to the same type was filed in the early part of 2010 by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, for similar reasons.
Both of the lawsuits have been filed in Delaware Chancery Court.
What the lawsuit alleges is the company is overcompensating its executives, and that is wasting the resources of the company in their view.
One question I have immediately is what is this union doing wasting the union dues of its members on what appears to be a frivolous case like this? Many people consider unions as being compensated far beyond market prices, and they should cut back on pay as well for their rank and file. Think of the three major automobile makers in America as an example of workers being overcompensated. So from that point of view this case makes little sense.
To me the lawsuit gets even weirder, as they want the executives in the company to be responsible for the charitable contributions the company make rather than its shareholders. Evidently it troubles this strange union that shareholders have a say in charitable contributions, as they can’t attack how the money is being distributed; at least that seems to be the reasoning behind the idea.
How strange is that? Asking a court to force executives at Goldman Sachs to be forcibly responsible for charitable contributions. Weird!
I think this is a large waste of time and money, and this lawsuit should be thrown out as quickly as possible. After all, who is going to compensate the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers union for spending their dues in this way?
