MAKE TIAA-CREF ETHICAL
Holding
TIAA CREF Accountable
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MAKE TIAA-CREF ETHICAL COALITION
IS YOUR INVESTMENT REALLY GOING
TOWARD THE “GREATER
GOOD”?
Dear
Professor/Staff Member,
It’s morning in America---do you know where your pension fund
assets were last night?
Would it upset you to know that TIAA-CREF---the nation’s
largest retirement fund---is a major investor in companies like
Wal-Mart, Nike, Costco, Coca-Cola, Chevron and Philip Morris/Altria? Millions of TIAA-CREF participants are contributing their
money to support abusive human and labor rights practices, destruction
of the environment, and harming of human health.
The fact is, some of our country’s worst corporate violators
are right at home in the portfolio of TIAA-CREF—which says it
provides financial services “for the greater good.”
In 2007, the 600,000-member New York State United Teachers (NYSUT)
passed a resolution critical of CREF’s continued investment
in several of these corporations. (See attached resolution.) Soon
after, the 1.3 million member strong American Federation of Teachers
passed a similar resolution. As educators and those working along-side
them,, we have spent our careers trying to help students learn the
truth about the world around them. The truth is that TIAA-CREF
continues to invest our funds in these corporate bad actors.
We don’t want our investment—
- Exploiting
Third World workers at Nike vendor
sweatshops
- Aggressively
union-busting American workers at
Wal-Mart
- Destroying
historic Mexican culture to build
Costcos-- and abusing the human rights of those who protest.
- Polluting
drinking waters in India; allowing the
intimidation or even killing of union workers under the not-so-watchful
eye of Coca-Cola bosses in Colombia
- Financing
the dictatorship in Burma (Myanmar) that
savagely abuses human rights
- Supporting
the killing practices of Philip
Morris/Altria, including its marketing to youth
It’s
time for faculty, staff, and students on campuses across
America to tell TIAA-CREF it must use its considerable shareholder
power to influence these corporations for the better--or stop investing
in them.
What
can you do? Let’s turn up the heat on CREF to truly
invest for the “greater good.” Help us educate the
faculty, staff, and students on your campus and nationwide. Email this
message to others at your school and elsewhere. All of us need to:
- As
a faculty or staff body, send a letter to
TIAA-CREF and/or pass a resolution similar to NYSUT's and send them to:
Roger W. Ferguson, CEO, TIAA-CREF, 730 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
- Tell
local or national media about the concerns
raised in your letter or resolution
- Individuals
should call TIAA-CREF at 800-842-2733
(212-490-9000) and ask for CEO Roger W. Ferguson. Leave the message:
“I want TIAA-CREF to put Wal-Mart, Nike, Coca Cola, Costco,
Chevron and Philip Morris/Altria on notice that if they
don’t clean up their human rights, environmental, and health
practices, that CREF will find other companies to invest in.”
Tell them if you are in the TIAA-CREF system; and if you are able to do
so at your institution and feel strongly enough, say that you (or your
whole school) will withdraw money from TIAA-CREF if they
don’t decide to engage or withdraw from some of these
companies.
- Individuals
should also email Mr. Ferguson and
TIAA-CREF Trustees with the same message: RWFerguson@tiaa-cref.org ;
trustees@tiaa-cref.org
For
the Coalition, www.makeTIAA-CREFethical.org mail
nwollman@bentley.edu for campaign updates (say “TC
updates” in subject line).
Neil
Wollman; Ph. D.; Senior Fellow, Bentley Alliance for Ethics and
Social Responsibility; Bentley College; Waltham, MA, 02452;
NWollman@Bentley.edu; 260-568-0116
Sprawl-Busters,
Press for Change,Campaign to Stop Killer Coke/Corporate
Campaign, Inc., Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Social Choice
for Social Change, Citizens Coalition (Frente Civico), Educating for
Justice, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, United Students
Against Sweatshops, Canadian Committee To Combat Crimes Against
Humanity (CCCCH), Corporate Accountability International (formerly
Infact), World Bank Bonds Boycott, International Longshore and
Warehouse Union.
Make
TIAA-CREF Ethical is a project of the Bentley Alliance for Ethics
and Social Responsibility; Bentley College.
TIAA-CREF’s Response to the resolution
Here is a response from TIAA-CREF to the AFT resolution and an accompanying letter from AFT. (We don’t have a copy of AFT’s original letter and are assuming that the resolution itself was also sent.) Unfortunately, TIAA-CREF’s letter does not address the issue of their continued investment in labor-unfriendly companies like Wal-Mart, Coke, and Nike. Neither does it address the resolution’s call for TIAA-CREF to “substantially strengthen their corporate oversight of companies in which it invests.” This translates into TIAA-CREF needing to practice shareholder activism on labor issues with its portfolio companies, spotlighting Coke, Wal-Mart, and Nike (three of the target companies we seek TIAA-CREF to influence).
*Resolution passed by NYSUT about TIAA-CREF (AFT passed a very similar resolution a little later in time)*
*Submitted by: *Professional Staff Congress/CUNY
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Campaign
success; TIAA-CREF adds community and environmental investment
to its socially responsible fund. Read
More...
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Organizations
Brief history of the Campaign
Actions one can take
Letter
to TIAA-CREF,
has more details on the companies we are asking TIAA-CREF to target
A
Poem from a Supporter
Money
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*
Maketiaa-Crefethical is a project of the Bentley Alliance for Ethics
and Social Responsibility.
Other
Projects:
Graduation
Pledge Alliance
Social Choice For Social Change
The National Index of Violence and Harm
Also sponsored by the Manchester College Peace Studies Institute.
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