TLC Vision shareholders apparently bought the argument that worthless stock options are bad for employee morale. They approved a plan to let employees exchange their old options, with exercise prices far above today’s market price, for new ones that actually have a chance of being valuable someday. TLC disclosed the result of the shareholder vote in a news release, but did not announce the vote totals.

Top executives of TLC, a Canadian eye-surgery company with its U.S. headquarters in Chesterfield, Mo., are not eligible to participate in the exchange. TLC’s shares are trading for 23 cents today; its employee options are exercisable at an average price of $4.09.

Shareholders at two other St. Louis companies, Stereotaxis and Savvis, recently voted on similar proposals to resuscitate worthless stock options. The Savvis proposal was approved and I’m still trying to find out what the result was at Stereotaxis.

Big companies like Google and eBay have also used the morale argument to support repricing of options, but as I said in a recent column, they should find a better way to compensate and motivate employees:

Options were overused during good times. Employees were happy to have them, and companies were eager to hand them out. Nobody, however, considered the demoralizing effect they would have in a downturn.