After shareholders approved an investor proposal from Trillium Asset Management, trucking company J.B. Hunt Transport Services will expand nondiscrimination protections to cover sexual orientation and gender identity. The Lowell, Arkansas-based company had urged stockholders to vote down the proposal, deeming it “unnecessary.”
Trillium, which owns more than 172,000 shares in J.B. Hunt, was the only investor to place a proposal on the proxy ballot. Brianna Murphy, Trillium’s vice president of shareholder advocacy, told Bloomberg in the run-up to the vote that “the trucking business requires employees to travel all over the country, and without a company-wide policy, the employees are at the mercy of the patchwork of state and local policies.”
According J.B. Hunt’s chief financial officer David Mee, 54.7% of votes from shareholders were in favor of the proposal. The firm employs almost 15,000 truck drivers and operates in 40 states.