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Here's a dry title: Director of Pension and Benefit Policy at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Who's the person who holds that title? Richard Ferlauto, who was recently interviewed by the NY Times, where he details organized labor’s effort to persuade corporate boards to alter the way they grant compensation to chief executives.

Here are few excerpts:

Q. Why are annual elections important to you?

A. It goes directly to the issue of board accountability. The best way to hold board members accountable to shareholders is to have them face shareholders every year in an election. At least at this point, shareholders don’t have the power to nominate directors and have them placed on the proxy. One way shareholders can indicate how they feel about a particular board is by withholding votes or voting against a director.

Q. How do you use your pension fund to give you leverage?

A. I wouldn’t say it’s leverage in any way. We’re looking to improve corporate governance practices in general as a way of achieving higher shareholder value and increasing the returns for our funds. We have 1.4 million members. They have their retirement assets invested in public pension systems across the country. They have over $1 trillion of assets invested there. Separately, there has been pressure on the defined-benefit systems of public funds. Some are not as well funded as they should be. So, then, gaining as high a return as we can is essential for our members. Promoting good corporate governance is a way of promoting higher and stronger returns on these investments.

Q. The Home Depot shareholders meeting received a great deal of attention, in part because of that break with past practice in which the board, aside from Mr. Nardelli, did not attend. What was your role at the meeting?

A. I was the guy who asked where the board members were. Mr. Nardelli opened up the meeting and made a very brief comment, saying it was time to elect the directors. I looked around and didn’t see any directors and said, “Mr. Nardelli, if directors are up for election, I think it would be important to have them introduced.” He said they’re not here.

Go get 'em, Richard!

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