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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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