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Walmart Plans Family Succession As Low-Wage Worker Plea Voted Down At Meeting

This article is more than 9 years old.

At Friday's Walmart annual meeting, workers and shareholders were treated to the usual blend of incongruity and spectacle.

Crooner Harry Connick, Jr. hosted the event, which draws 14,000 Walmart employees each year to the Bud Walton (yes, that Walton) Arena in Fayetteville, Ark., a few miles from the headquarters of the world's largest retailer in Bentonville.

Pop stars including Sarah McLachlan and Pharrell Williams entertained an excitable crowd at the summit, which kicked off as always at 7am CST. The big box giant's late founder Sam Walton was an early riser.

As expected, each shareholder proposal presented at the meeting was voted down thanks to the Walton family's 51% stake in Walmart, amounting to a veto. Last year, this included a proposal on corporate governance delivered by a former Bangladesh factory worker months after the deadly Rana Plaza disaster killed over 1,000 garment workers.

If the fast-fashion supply chain was the hot topic of 2013, this year's contentious issue has been low wages at Walmart. To that end, longtime employee and shareholder Charmaine Givens-Thomas delivered a proposal on Friday morning to vote chairman and family patriarch Rob Walton off the board.

Givens-Thomas flew into Arkansas from Chicago where she'd been on strike. She told the audience that she can't afford to provide for her family on Walmart wages.

"A majority of Walmart associates in the United States are paid less than $25,000 per year," she said. "I’m a mom and a grandmother now. And even after my eight years at Walmart, I only make $23,000."

"We create enormous wealth for Walmart shareholders, including the Walton family, the richest family in America," she added.

"Now, I’m not saying the Waltons shouldn’t make a good profit, but something is wrong when the richest family in America pays hundreds of thousands of associates so little they cannot survive without relying on food stamps, on public health insurance, and on the charity of co-workers."

She cited recent allegations against Walmart for alleged underhanded dealings in Mexico as another reason Rob Walton should be replaced by an independent chair.

"Over the last few years, our company has suffered some serious scandals," she said. "Bribery. Corruption. Environmental violations. Labor law violations. We can get beyond these problems and move our company in a better direction, but it is going to take strong and independent leadership."

"We need a leader at the top who thinks only of what is best for our company, its associates, and all shareholders. Right now, as you know, the chairman of our company is Mr. S. Robson [Rob] Walton. He is not independent. We need an independent chairman."

Once this and two other shareholder proposals were voted down, 69-year-old Rob Walton took to the stage to announce some succession planning business. He told the assembled workers and shareholders that the board had chosen his son-in-law Greg Penner as vice chair, a newly created role.

Former Goldman Sachs analyst Penner, 44, was re-elected to the board on Friday as were the company's 13 other directors, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer, Rob and Jim Walton and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, who took over the top role in February.

McMillon, 47, earned fans during the meeting with his exuberance and willingness to take 'selfie' photos with workers, some of whom posted them to social media with the hashtag #WMTShares.

Video: How the Waltons got so wealthy: