If you own stock in any company, you probably get that annual piece of mail from the company, shrouded in black plastic, containing an annual report, a proxy voting card, and a white paper booklet describing the various proposals under consideration. Most of the proposals are fairly conventional: approving some new directors, for example. In the past I would have said that stock option grant and auditor appointment proposals were fairly conventional, but in light of recent activity, I've changed my mind. In the past month or two I've voted against the Board of Directors in several cases.
As a shareholder of eBay, I voted against their proposal to increase the number of options they could issue to employees and directors. As a regular old shareholder, some dilution is acceptable if it can help the company hire and reward good employees, driving the share price higher for everyone. However, as the Motley Fool points out, the economy is lousy, and it's an employer's market in terms of hiring. Also, they have already set aside a large % of total shares outstanding for employee compensation. It doesn't feel like it's in my best self-interest to grant more dilution. Given the % of shares in the hands of eBay employees the proposal will probably pass regardless, but opposition, as in the case of the HP-Compaq merger, raises healthy debate.
Second, as a shareholder of Siebel, I voted for a shareholder proposal to expense stock options. I believe in expensing options, and again I was counter to the Board on this issue. My piddly number of votes will have the impact of an ant sneezing on an elephant's butt, but if a billion ants sneezed on that same elephant butt it just might tickle.