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Environment, Community Reinvestment Top List
From
PCUSA NEWS <pcusanews@pcusa80.pcusa.org>
Date
10 Aug 1998 14:53:22
Reply-To: pcusanews list <pcusanews@pcusa80.pcusa.org>
10-August-1998
98259
Environment, Community Reinvestment Top List
of MRTI Priorities for the Coming Year
by Jerry L. Van Marter
MINNEAPOLIS- Sticking with issues that have occupied much of its attention
for several years now, the Mission Responsibility Through Investment
Committee (MRTI) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has chosen to focus in
the coming year primarily on environmental concerns, community reinvestment
and equal credit opportunity.
The committee will also continue to engage in dialogue and shareholder
actions around the issues of transnational business practices, employment
practices, media standards and military weapons production. MRTI has
identified more than 30 corporations with which it will seek dialogue or
shareholder action.
The priorities were established and plans made at the committee's July
30-Aug. 1 meeting here, which also included conversations with a number of
Minnesota-based corporations in which church investing agencies - primarily
the Board of Pensions and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Foundation -
hold stock.
MRTI investigates the business activities of corporations in which
Presbyterian investment agencies hold stock to determine their compliance
with General Assembly policies on such issues as environmental protection,
equal employment and credit opportunity, health, safety and labor
standards, and the practices of companies that do business outside the
United States, particularly in Mexico and the Caribbean.
The committee seeks information from and dialogue with companies whose
business practices don't square with Assembly policies and, when dialogue
fails, files shareholder resolutions seeking changes in corporate behavior.
MRTI also maintains divestment lists - based on General Assembly actions -
of companies engaged in tobacco and military weapons production. It then
advises church investing agencies on which companies' stocks to avoid and
on how to vote their proxies in shareholder meetings.
MRTI's recommendations are advisory, not mandatory. Both the Board of
Pensions and the Presbyterian Foundation have voting representatives on the
committee.
Environment
For a number of years, MRTI's strategy has been to select particular
environmental issues - such as toxic pollution of air, soil and water,
hazardous waste disposal and global climate change - and identify
industries related to those issues (petrochemical, paper and forest
products, electronics and semiconductor companies and utilities).
Companies most active in those industries are then selected for dialogue
and possible shareholder actions.
The current focus list of companies includes Advanced Micro Devices,
Allstate, Chevron, Chubb, General Re, International Paper, Motorola,
Niagara Mohawk, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Texas Utilities,
Tosco, Intel and Hewlett-Packard.
The committee voted to concentrate its efforts in this area during the
coming year on Chevron and the operations of its main refinery in Richmond,
Calif.; on Tosco, which now operates a refinery in Rodeo, Calif., formerly
owned by Unocal, which has been notorious for its air pollution and
discharges of toxic chemicals into San Francisco Bay; and Advanced Micro
Devices and Intel, two giants in the computer chip industry, where ground
water contamination has been a serious issue.
Community reinvestment and equal credit opportunity
MRTI's goal here is to increase access to capital - home mortgage and
small business loans - which is critical to the revitalization of
distressed communities.
The effort has focused on compliance with the Community Reinvestment
Act, which requires banking institutions to meet the credit needs of their
entire communities, including low- and moderate-income families, and the
Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which prohibits lenders from discriminating
on the basis of color, religion, national origin, gender, marital status or
age.
"Megamergers in the banking industry are making this a very difficult
area to track," said MRTI staffer the Rev. William Somplatsky-Jarman,
noting the recent mergers of Norwest and Wells Fargo and NationsBank and
Bank of America.
The committee voted to continue ongoing dialogues with Norwest, Chase,
NationsBank, Citicorp/Travelers and First Union/Core States.
Global corporate accountability
MRTI's work in this area has focused largely upon the operations of
U.S. companies along the U.S.-Mexico border. It has also looked into the
manufacturing operations of companies in Central America and the Caribbean.
The committee has made several trips in the last few years to visit the
"maquiladoras" just across the border from U.S. border towns such as El
Paso (Juarez), Tucson (Nogales) and San Diego (Tijuana).
MRTI has supported the Maquiladora Standards of Conduct, which address
environmental contamination, health and safety of workers, a living wage
and the building of community infrastructure.
In recent years the committee has turned some attention to the conduct
of contract suppliers to U.S. companies, particularly in the clothing and
toy industries. The issue recently attracted national media attention with
revelations that child labor was used to produce clothing marketed in this
country by television celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford but manufactured in the
Caribbean.
The committee voted to continue dialogues with Lands' End, Mattel,
Warnaco and Hasbro.
Employment practices
Over the years, MRTI has been concerned about employment-related issues
such as equal employment opportunity, affirmative action, pay equity and
occupational health and safety. Issues surrounding the lack of use of
minority vendors and the pervasiveness of the "glass ceiling" (the
invisible ceiling on advancement opportunities for women within
corporations) have also been raised.
The committee voted to concentrate its efforts here on American
International Group (financial services), Shoney's restaurants and
Dillard's department stores.
Media standards
MRTI has focused on a number of issues here - portrayals of sex and
violence in media, rating systems for television, V-chip technology, retail
sales of handguns and other weapons and toy stores' marketing of toy guns
that can be altered to appear as real ones.
The committee voted to concentrate on General Electric, the parent
company of NBC, the only network that has refused to include ratings on its
television shows.
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