UUSC supports shareholder resolutions
that promote responsible corporate behavior
Building on more than a decade of work, UUSC continues to engage in shareholder advocacy, leveraging our role as an investor to advocate for more responsible corporate behavior on the part of targeted companies. We know that ownership in a company, as a shareholder, is a powerful vehicle for raising social justice issues within the corporate structure and then ensuring the development of policies and practices that promote human rights.
“While we invest the lion’s share of UUSC’s endowment funds in companies that fit a socially responsible profile, we use limited funds to enable us to influence other corporations to improve their human rights records,” explains UUSC President Charlie Clements. “Reinforcing our program focuses, we pressed six of those companies to improve corporate social performance in meeting global human rights and vendor standards developed by the international community.”
UUSC staff filed or cofiled shareholder resolutions to be voted on at the companies’ 2005 annual meetings. We have also engaged in ongoing discussions with companies on improving corporate social performance standards.
President Clements also thanked businesses which realize that developing policies and practices that are socially responsible bring financial as well as social benefits. He thanked ALLTEL Corporation for example, which modified its nondiscrimination policies to include sexual orientation.
Demanding accountability
The firms with whom UUSC has either filed or cofiled shareholder resolutions calling for change include:
- ALLTEL Corporation (cofiler), asking the corporation to include sexual orientation in nondiscrimination policies
- ExxonMobil Corporation (cofiler), asking them to observe standards set by the International Labor Organization (ILO)
- Merck & Company (primary filer), asking them to report on activities to combat HIV/AIDS
- PepsiCo, Inc. (cofiler), asking them to report on activities to combat HIV/AIDS
- The TJX Companies, Inc. (cofiler), asking them to implement vendor standards
- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (cofiler), asking hem to report on environmental, economic and social sustainability
Filing or coiling a resolution allows the sponsoring shareholder(s) to raise an issue with management and encourage policy change at that level. Filing a shareholder resolution also puts an issue before all shareholders in writing during the proxy voting process and in person before many of the largest and most influential shareholders at the corporation’s annual meeting.
To download a PowerPoint presentation on Shareholder Activism, click here.
New Items:
November 9, 2006
UUSC urges the Coca-Cola Company to conduct studies on the environmental
impact of extracting resources from areas of water scarcity in India.
Click here to read the letter.
