Divestment from Israeli occupation dominates CREF annual meeting in Charlotte; part of simultaneous 20-city protest against retirement giant.FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sydney Levy, JVP Campaigns Director,
Email: sydney AT
Website: http://www.WeDivest.org
Press Kit: http://tinyurl.com/
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/
Divestment from Israeli occupation dominates CREF annual meeting in Charlotte; part of simultaneous 20-city protest against retirement giant.
Forty North Carolina activists and shareholders demonstrated in scorching temperatures outside the July 19 TIAA-CREF annual meeting while a dozen shareholders and proxies inside demanded company divest from corporations profiting from Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
[July 19, 2011-Charlotte, NC] For the second year in a row, the board of directors of the retirement giant TIAA-CREF got an earful from angry shareholders at their annual meeting about their refusal to divest from companies that profit from the Israeli illegal occupation. In Charlotte, NC today, 40 protestors outside and a dozen upset shareholders and local residents inside demanded to know why TIAA-CREF was refusing to let participants vote on a divestment shareholder resolution related to human rights violations.
The shareholders and activists are part of a broad-based campaign, endorsed by Nobel Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu and American Friends Service Committee, and supported by thousands of academics, medical and nonprofit workers who want TIAA-CREF to divest from companies that profit from Israeli violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Some 25,000 people have signed petitions and letters to the company.
The Jewish Voice for Peace-initiated campaign, WeDivest.org, is the target of the largest divestment campaign for Palestinian human rights in US history.
TIAA-CREF barred the shareholders’ pro-divestment resolution from being voted on, and moved the meeting to Charlotte, NC instead of New York City where the meeting is typically held, presumably to avoid protests. Shareholders flew in from across the country.
During the meeting, all questions but one focused on TIAA-CREF’s holdings with companies like Caterpillar, which profits from Israeli destruction of homes, and Veolia, which profits from bus lines that are segregated and serve illegal settlements. About a dozen people challenged TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson on his seemingly inconsistent commitment to socially responsible investment, while just 4 people spoke against divesting from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation.
Additional protests were also held today in 20 cities across the United States including in Boston, Denver, Baltimore, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Lexington, Washington DC, Seattle and
- Chicago: where 30 protestors were met at the TIAA-CREF office by flanks of police officers and security guards
- Philadelphia: where 30 protestors were banned from the building.
- New York City: 80 people listened to Brokeback Mountain producer/Focus Films Head James Schamus endorse divestment
TIAA-CREF Roger Ferguson admitted that his staff was erroneously telling concerned shareholders to switch investments into TIAA-CREF’s Socially Responsible Investment fund, even though the fund has shares in companies like Motorola and Caterpillar who profit from destruction of Palestinian homes and orchards.
Proponents also challenged his claim that there is not yet consensus on the occupation, and so it is too early for TIAA-CREF to act. “There is complete consensus in the human rights community that the Israeli occupation is illegal,” responded JVP Campaigns Director Sydney Levy.
QUOTES:
Heike Schotten, Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts-Boston, said: “Last fall, when I and many other concerned UMass Boston faculty and staff raised our concerns with Mr. Ferguson about TIAA-CREF’s investment in companies that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation, we were told to shift our retirement funds into the company’s Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) options. Imagine our surprise at learning that these SRIs still invest in Caterpillar and Motorola. Because financial support for bulldozers, checkpoints, military surveillance, and weapons are not our idea of socially responsible investing, I’ve come here today all the way from UMass Boston to ask TIAA-CREF for a truly responsible investment portfolio.”
Deborah Rosenstein, , a North Carolina educator, said: “I was surprised when I learned CREF shareholders were going to meet in Charlotte, but I am pleased that I can attend the meeting and speak my mind as a TIAA-CREF investor. As a local educator here in North Carolina, I am eager to urge CREF to divest from companies that are profiting from the Israeli occupation and which are complicit in blocking Palestinian youth’s access to an education.”
Barbara Harvey,a Detroit labor rights lawyer, said: “As a TIAA-CREF client, I have a personal stake in the company’s financial success. I am flying to Charlotte for the CREF meeting from my home in Detroit to emphasize how deeply distressed I am — along with the thousands of other TIAA-CREF participants who have joined our campaign — that TIAA-CREF compels me to retire in part on its profits from companies that continue to rob the Palestinian people of their ancestral homes, land, water, freedom, and happiness. We don’t ask TIAA-CREF to divest from the Israeli Occupation at a financial loss, but rather to look to more honorable equivalent investments, that do not seek profits from serious human rights abuses.”
Sydney Levy, Campaign Director at Jewish Voice for Peace, said: “The thousands of people who have signed our petition believe in the value of human dignity, in fairness and equality. I think that the TIAA-CREF Trustees share these values, but their investment decision so far –including in the so-called socially responsible investment funds–say otherwise. All we are asking is that TIAA-CREF aligns its actions with its values.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1984) said: “In South Africa we understood that true peace could be built only on the basis of justice and an unwavering commitment to universal rights for all humans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin or any other identity attribute. I encourage TIAA-CREF, whose slogan is “for the greater good”, to heed the call for divestment, to refuse to profit from oppression of a people, and thus to stand on the side of what is right: a safe, secure and peaceful future for Palestinians and Israelis.”
Video, audio, and stills of the protests are available upon request. Email lev AT jewishvoiceforpeace.org
