Investor reaches for reins on executive pay

"Five years ago the markets were doing great and now they're not. But CEO pay has kept going up," Hodgson said.

About one-quarter of the nearly 100 companies facing "say-on-pay" proposals this season have already held votes, and the plans average more than 40 percent investor support, according to RiskMetrics Group, which tracks trends in corporate governance.

The first such vote this year passed at Apple Inc., where CEO Steve Jobs has amassed more than 5.4 million Apple shares -worth more than $616 million -along with his annual salary of just $1. A proposal was approved at Lexmark International Inc. and garnered considerable backing at other companies -43 percent at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., 46 percent at Boeing Co. and 48 percent at Merck & Co.

Last Monday, insurance company Aflac Inc. put its top executives' compensation to an advisory vote -a first for a U.S. company, according to Aflac spokeswoman Laura Kane. By a 93 percent vote, investors approved CEO Dan Amos's $14.8 million compensation in 2007, a year when the company's shares reached all-time highs.

Other boards, though, have overwhelmingly opposed the say-on-pay proposals. They cite industry competition for a scarce pool of qualified executives and suggest alternative avenues for shareholder input, such as writing letters to board members.

The proposals for annual votes on executives' pay for the prior year are nonbinding, but investors who clearly express their will can bring about change. Many companies have adopted limits on severance packages and reformed their board elections in recent years after successful shareholder proposals on those issues.

"Boards can sit back and ignore these proposals," said Hodgson. "But it would be a brave board that says, 'You may think that, but we're not going to do anything.'"

Verizon Communications Inc., Blockbuster Inc. and Par Pharmaceutical Co. will give investors a nonbinding vote on executive pay beginning next year, after a majority of their shareholders supported the idea in 2007.

For Morse, who has been trying to beat back executive pay for a decade, the idea of an advisory vote is promising but he won't stop pushing for hard-and-fast limits.

"I'm fighting greed," Morse says. "They don't earn their money. I worked for my money."