Dupont Meeting

IBDW PROPOSAL FOR DUPONT STOCKHOLDERS REJECTED BY SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

In October 2008, the IBDW submitted the following proposal for inclusion in DuPont's Stockholder Proxy, to be voted on by the stockholders a the April 2009 Annual Meeting.

After much back and forth with the Securities and Exchange Commission, DuPont was able to convince the SEC that it could exclude the proposal as it dealt with issues not appropriate for its stockholders to vote on.

Undeterred, the IBDW took its message to the Wilmington News Journal, the largest circulation newspaper in Wilmington, Delaware.

The News Journal published a column written by Kenneth Henley, the IBDW General Counsel, that specifically addressed the issues in our Stockholder Proposal. The column as well as the Stockholder Proposal follow and are printed in full.

The International Brotherhood of DuPont Workers, P.O. Box 10, Waynesboro, VA 22980, owner of 60 shares of DuPont Common Stock, has given notice that it will introduce the following resolution and statement in support thereof:

Resolved: That the stockholders of E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Company, assembled in annual meeting in person and by proxy, hereby request that the Board of Directors give consideration to ending discrimination in its retirement policies by allowing all employees, regardless of age or length of service, to choose to remain in the defined benefit pension plan as it was written and applied through 2006, prior to it having been eviscerated and essentially replaced by the savings and investment plan that was adopted beginning in 2007.

Stockholders’ Statement

In August 2006, DuPont announced far reaching changes to its pension and retirement plans for its employees.

Perhaps the most significant change was that, as of January 1, 2008, the service that employees accrued would increase their pension calculation for their defined pension benefit at just 1/3 of its current level. Additionally, the benefit provided to the survivor of the employee was capped at the amount it was at as of that date – it would not grow at all.

The Company announced that, as a trade off for those dramatic cuts to the pension benefit, it would make a greater contribution to the employee’s savings and investment plan.

This change in the calculation of retirement benefits has had devastating consequences for employees, particularly the older employees. This is because, up until this change, DuPont calculated pension benefits based on annual compensation and years of service. Moreover, the amount that an employee received upon retirement increased dramatically as wages increased over time, and as an employee got older and accrued more service. The last five years of service routinely resulted in more than a 25% increase in the employee’s monthly pension. And when the employee retired, he could count on the same pension benefit each month.

With the new savings and investment plan, the older employee, with his many years of service, finds that his last years of service have nowhere near the impact of increasing his pension as was the case in the past. Expectations of what his pension will be, expectations created and nurtured by DuPont over his lengthy career, have been smashed.

It is appropriate that the discrimination inherent in the changes to the pension program - discrimination that impacts older employees far more than the younger employees - be eliminated. Adopting this resolution deserves the support of the shareholders of DuPont, many of whom are also employees.

Wilmington News Journal Article

"DuPont Still Fighting To Gut Pension Plan - Union's Concerns Verified By Falling Stocks"

Back in October 2006 DuPont changed its pension plan for its employees, telling employees how much better off they would be under their new plan.

The change involved cutting by 2/3 the existing defined benefit plan, where an employee is guaranteed upon retirement a certain amount each month based on his age and years of service, and instead providing a slightly increased contribution to the employee’s savings and investment plan which the employee is then free to invest as he wishes.

At the time of the announced change, the business community and even the media spoke in favor of what DuPont was doing, going so far as to claim it was better for employees. The most common explanations included that this change was better for employees who left DuPont's employ and went to work elsewhere and that, with the increased contribution to the savings and investment plan, employees would do as well as or better in the stock market than under the defined benefit plan.

The International Brotherhood of DuPont Workers, representing workers at various DuPont plants around the country, didn’t buy in to this change. And with the implosion of the stock market, it is brutally obvious that the IBDW’s concerns were right on the mark.

Member unions of the IBDW filed for arbitration, claiming that the change was unlawful as it was implemented during an existing contract that each had with DuPont.

Since a victory at one DuPont plant might impact all DuPont plants – as the pension benefits arguably have to be the same for all DuPont employees - DuPont fought hard to prevent the issue from going to arbitration.

DuPont filed an action in Federal District Court in Virginia, asking the Court to deny the Union the opportunity to go to arbitration over the change. After having lost in Federal District Court, DuPont filed an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeals. DuPont lost that appeal. Then DuPont took the extraordinary step of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their appeal of the decision of the Court of Appeals. But the Supreme Court refused DuPont's request and the case is in fact going to arbitration in May 2009.

While all this was going on, the IBDW filed a stockholder proposal regarding this change in the pension benefit, asking that this proposal be placed on the DuPont proxy that is being voted on at the end of April 2009. DuPont successfully kept this proposal off the proxy, getting the SEC to agree that this was not a matter stockholders can vote on, even if the vote is purely advisory.

With the stockholders meeting fast approaching and the attention that is going to receive, this is an issue that deserves to be heard, despite DuPont's efforts to the contrary. It is an issue that concerns so many Delaware residents with family who work for DuPont. This includes wage roll employees and supervisors, and those in union and non-union facilities, as all stand to benefit from a return to the old pension plan.

While there are many in the media and business community who speak negatively about unions, I imagine there are many who work for DuPont, even those who don’t work at a union site, who are glad someone is out there fighting for their interests.