Who asks the REAL Investor for his opinion on Pay?

All very well for the Investment Association to claim that 'Investors' hold cards for AGM season. But apart from the fact that the season is basically over the big question remains: how much - if any - influence do the real end investors that the article refers to ("those of us who ....through pensions and savings are (trying) to get the best possible return on their hard-earned money") have with respect to corporate governance, and the most critical and topical issue, that of (excessive) executive pay?

As long as fiduciaries are given full discretion in their handling of governance issues - sometimes and quite often outsourced to for-profit proxy agencies - the real investors will be helpless bystanders. Naturally they cannot oversee all AGM votes and interventions with managements - but neither can even the largest fiduciaries such as Blackrock or Vanguard. They would need an army of expensive professionals to look into the details of thousands of companies and be as sophisticated - if not more so - as their colleagues who do the actual stock selection.
Pro Governance suggests that the first step to meaningful reform of executive pay should be this: give all executives a simple annual wage. All benefits, incentives should be on a pro-rata basis for all employees. So if pension contributions or bonuses are 20% of salary that number should apply to all staff members.
Numerous time the article refers to the 'shareholders' but in reality it means the fiduciaries, the investment institutions that are entrusted with managing the real investor's assets. That brings up the major fault in the corporate landscape, in the UK and elsewhere: the lack of input from these investors. It is clear that none of the investment intermediaries care to obtain the consent of their clients with respect to corporate governance questions.
(16-Aug-2017)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/08/15/agm-season-should-act-warning-boards-ignore-shareholders-peril/ (Pay-Wall)