wfn.org | MRTI sets priorities and work plans for coming year

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Note #6136 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

28-July-2000
00273

MRTI sets priorities and work plans for coming year

Environment, employment practices of multinationals to be primary focus of
investor advisory group

by Jerry L. Van Marter

SEATTLE -- With nearly $8 billion of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
investments at stake, the denomination's Mission Responsibility Through
Investment Committee (MRTI) set out its priorities for the coming year at a
three-day meeting here July 20-22 that also included meetings with a number
of corporations and environmental and human rights groups.
	The committee, which monitors corporate behavior in light of General
Assembly social policy and advises church investors based on its findings --
primarily the Board of Pensions and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Foundation -- reaffirmed the focus it has placed in recent years on
environmental issues, community reinvestment and equal credit opportunity,
the business practices of multinational corporations in such areas as vendor
standards, labor practices and human rights, and such employment practices
as equal employment opportunity, affirmative action, pay equity and
occupational health and safety.
	The committee also voted to continue its monitoring of sex and violence in
the media, military contractors and the deterioration of family farming and
rural life in the United States.
	MRTI engages corporations in three primary ways: dialogue with corporate
officers around particular issues; the filing of shareholder resolutions,
usually in cooperation with other churches and humanitarian groups; and in
extreme cases — such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and nuclear warhead and
land mine production -- recommendations to the General Assembly that church
investors divest themselves of such stocks.

	Environment

	The key thrust of MRTI's work on the environmental involves selecting
particular issues — for instance toxic pollution of air, soil and water —
and identifying industry groups related to those issues, such as
petro-chemical, paper, electronics and semi-conductor manufacturers to
monitor.
	The current focus list includes Advanced Micro Devices, Atlantic Richfield,
Chevron, CSX, DuPont, Exxon, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Tosco (oil refiners)
and Unocal.
	The movement of much manufacturing to other countries with widely varying
environmental standards has complicated MRTI's work in this area in recent
years.  The committee is active in efforts to persuade multinational
corporations to endorse the CERES Principles, a set of global environmental
protection standards for corporations.  A dozen Fortune 500 companies have
now adopted the principles, the most recent being Ford Motor Company and
American Airlines.

	Community Reinvestment and Equal Credit Opportunity

	The religious community has devoted more and more time in recent years in
persuading financial institutions to increase access to capital which is
vital to the rebuilding of decaying urban and rural areas.  The effort has
focused on compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires
banking institutions to meet credit needs of their entire communities,
including low and moderate income families.
	MRTI is aided by CANICCOR, a non-profit organization based in the San
Francisco area and supported by numerous religious groups, which researches
the lending patterns of large financial institutions
	The committee voted to focus its monitoring the coming year on the lending
practices of BankAmerica, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Golden West, Chase,
Household International and CIT Group.

	Global Corporate Accountability

	For a number of years, MRTI has been heavily involved in monitoring
corporate behavior along the U.S.-Mexico border, specifically in
manufacturing plants ("maquiladoras") set up just across the border to take
advantage of cheap Mexican labor.  With the increasing expansion of
multinational corporations' manufacturing operations to Asia, the issue has
become global.
	MRTI focuses on four issues: global manufacturing standards, standards of
conduct for vendors, child and forced labor and human rights.  Specific
concerns include the use of child labor (the Kathie Lee Gifford clothing
scandal raised this issue to public prominence), the use of prison labor in
such countries as China, the presence of sweatshops throughout the world,
and the business dealings of some multinational corporations with such
outlaw governments as the military regime in Burma.
	This year's General Assembly asked MRTI to investigate the relationship
between Talisman Energy of Canada and the Muslim government of Sudan, which
is using oil revenues from Talisman to fund its war against Christians and
animists in the southern region of the country.
	MRTI is engaged in dialogue around some of these issues with such companies
as Land's End, Mattel, Hasbro, Disney, Delphi, Wal-Mart and Nike.
	
	Employment Practices
	
	Over the years, MRTI has been concerned about such employment-related
issues as equal employment opportunity (EEO), affirmative action, pay equity
and occupational health and safety.  Shareholder resolutions have been
frequently used to pry EEO data out of reluctant companies.
	In recent years, MRTI has participated in shareholder resolutions seeking
to persuade corporations to diversify their boards of directors and to clean
up their negative portrayals of racial ethnic minorities in advertising.
	The committee voted to continue its monitoring of Venator (formerly
Woolworths), American International Group and MBNA, the Delaware-based mass
distributor of credit cards.

	Sex and violence in the media

	Religious groups have been in the forefront of efforts to persuade media
companies to clean up the proliferation of sex and violence in movies, on
television and, increasingly, on the Internet.  Churches have also tried to
pressure toy companies to restrict or end the sales of hand guns and other
weapons and to sell only "toy" weapons which cannot be confused with real
ones.
	Committee members were incensed by a recent announcement by AT&T that it
had signed an agreement with The Hot Network to distribute hard-core
pornography through its digital cable network.  The committee voted to
co-file a shareholders' resolution with numerous other church groups to stop
the distribution agreement.

	Several dialogues held

	During its three days here, MRTI met with officials of Nordstrom's -- the
department store giant -- and with leaders of several groups working on a
number of issues:

	* Nordstrom officials explained efforts the Seattle-based company is making
to ensure just working and manufacturing standards among the thousands of
vendors -- most overseas -- that supply apparel to the retailer.

	* Representatives of Citizens for a Healthy Bay outlined the progress and
setbacks they are encountering in their efforts to get Commencement Bay in
nearby Tacoma cleaned up after years of toxic pollution in the Port of
Tacoma waterways. Commencement Bay was one of the first Environmental
Protection Agency "Superfund" clean-up sites in the country.

	* Michael Ramos of the Washington Association of Churches and the Rev. Tom
Quigley of the Church Council of Greater Seattle recounted the efforts of
church groups to impact the World Trade Organization meetings which erupted
into violent protest last fall in Seattle.

	* Larry Dhors, a faculty member at the University of Washington outlined a
citizens' campaign to halt the involvement of Unocal in a natural gas
pipeline project with the government of Burma. Most other U.S. companies
have withdrawn from Burma to protest the brutal military dictatorship in the
country.

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