强生董事会信任危机升级

    早在2010年，包括NECA-IBEW福利信托基金（NECA-IBEW Welfare Trust Fund）和夏威夷劳工养老基金（Hawaii Laborers Pension Fund）在内的一部分强生股东就把强生告上了法庭，认为强生董事会忽视了已经出现的危险信号。一位地区法官驳回了上诉，不过她也指出，她认为股东们对董事会的意见“令人忧心且普遍存在”。

    董事会在强生2011年的股东委托书中表扬了强生CEO威廉•韦尔顿处理召回事件中的表现，说他2010年的表现“基本满足了预期”，并补充称，“韦尔登先生的领导能力，以及他对员工、立法者、监管机构、投资者和新闻媒体所做的工作使公司得以应对这些问题。”

    不过在2010年的许多时间里，韦尔顿都尽量躲着媒体。第一次针对产品召回表态时，他表示那是仅限于McNeil工厂的孤立事件。不久之后，强生又对旗下Depuy部门生产的人工髋关节植入物实施了召回。2010年4月，强生的一位发言人表示，韦尔顿并不认为McNeil“召回门”与公司的削减成本政策有关。而7月强生公司就发布了一份报告，承认公司通过强力推行裁员等措施进行的成本削减是导致出现质量问题的原因之一。

    不过该报告也表示，强生的官员和董事们并没有违反他们的信托责任，并承诺将成立一个新的法规遵从委员会。强生的一位发言人在一封电子邮件中写道：“公司管理层非常重视股东的意见和批评。”

薪酬过高惹众怒

    韦尔顿的薪水也是强生投资者们的一块心病，可能这也是导致他们对董事会越来越不满的主要原因。强生薪酬委员会的成员们尤其不受股东的欢迎。这个薪酬委员会的成员除了上文提到的普林斯和琼斯之外，还包括施乐公司（Xerox）前CEO安妮•麦卡伊和箭牌（Wm. Wrigley Jr.）前CEO威廉•皮雷兹。薪酬委员会的主席普林斯本人就曾在从花旗集团离职时拿走了高达1亿美元的遣散费。

    股东顾问服务公司ISS建议它的客户对强生的薪酬政策投反对票：“虽然强生的声誉不断受到挑战，但公司对其CEO的薪酬标准缺乏判断力。”研究机构Equilar指出，韦尔顿去年的薪水是2,340万美元，在所有大公司里，比他薪水更多的CEO只有12个人（他的基本薪水还提高了3%）。另外强生最近还透露，韦尔顿在退休时将获得超过1.4亿美元的福利和递延报酬。

    2011年是《多德弗兰克法案》（Dodd-Frank Act）赋予股东“薪酬发言权”的第一年，有39%的强生股东投票反对公司的薪酬方案。后来强生修改了方案，把重点放在绩效工资上。不过美国州、郡、市联合工会（AFSCME）的代表表示，韦尔顿的薪水仍然超标。该工会的资本战略主任丽萨•林斯利认为：“对于那些负责制定高管薪酬的人来说，他们自己对薪酬方案做出的调整具有里程碑式的意义，但对于股东来说还不够。”

    A group of J&J shareholders, including the NECA-IBEW Welfare Trust Fund and the Hawaii Laborers Pension Fund, sued the board in 2010, arguing that directors had ignored red flags. A U.S. District judge dismissed the complaint, but noted in her opinion that the shareholders' allegations against the board were "troubling and pervasive."

    In J&J's 2011 proxy statement, the board praised J&J's CEO, William Weldon, for his handling of the recalls. The statement said Weldon "generally met expectations" in 2010, adding, "Mr. Weldon's leadership and engagement with employees, legislators, regulators, investors and the news media enabled the company to deal with the issues."

    During a significant portion of 2010, though, Weldon avoided the press. When he first addressed the recalls, he said that they were isolated to the company's McNeil unit; not long after that, J&J issued recalls of hip implants made by its DePuy division. In April 2010, a J&J spokesperson said Weldon didn't think that cost cutting played a role in McNeil's problems. The following July, J&J released a report that conceded that the company's push to cut costs through layoffs had contributed to its quality woes.

    The report also said that J&J's officers and directors had not breached their fiduciary duties, and pledged to create a new regulatory compliance committee. In an email, a J&J spokesperson wrote, "The Company's management takes the shareholder concerns and criticisms very seriously."

Excessive pay

    Weldon's compensation is a sore spot for J&J investors, and may be the primary source of their growing dissatisfaction with the board. The directors on the compensation committee last year -- which, in addition to Prince and Johns, included former Xerox (XRX) CEO Anne Mulcahy and former Wm. Wrigley Jr. CEO William Perez -- were particularly unpopular with voters. Prince, who famously walked away from Citigroup with about $100 million, is the compensation committee's chairman.

    ISS told its clients to vote against the company's pay policy, citing a "lack of negative discretion on CEO's pay magnitude despite ongoing reputational challenges." Weldon took home $23.4 million last year, according to research firm Equilar, making him the 13th highest paid leader of a large company (he received a 3% bump in his base salary). J&J recently disclosed that Weldon is set to receive more than $140 million worth of benefits and deferred compensation when he retires.

    In 2011 -- the first year that the Dodd-Frank Act mandated "Say-on-Pay" votes -- 39% of J&J's shareholders voted against its compensation plan. The company responded by changing its program, focusing more on performance-based pay. But representatives from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) say Weldon's pay package was still excessive. "To the executives at J&J who deal with executive compensation, the changes they made were monumental. For shareholders, they just weren't enough," says Lisa Lindsley, the union's director of capital strategies.