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Angry Homeowners, Community Groups Protested at Wells Fargo AGM April 29th, 2012
Thousands of angry homeowners, immigrants, union members, Occupiers and community groups converged on the annual shareholders meeting of Wells Fargo Bank. In a carefully choreographed protest, simultaneous marches left Justin Herman Plaza on the city’s waterfront, site of the Occupy San Francisco encampment last fall. Demonstrators walked up parallel streets into the financial district, where they encircled the block in which the meeting was set to take place, in the Julia Morgan ballroom of the Merchant’s Exchange Building.
A group of religious, union and community representatives had purchased shares of stock in the bank beforehand, supposedly allowing them to attend the shareholders meeting. Some even held proxies, allowing them to vote the stock belonging to others. As the rally swirled outside, and speeches and songs filled the streets now vacant of their normal traffic, the police closed off the building and refused to let the shareholders inside:
Wells Fargo blocked over a hundred legitimate shareholders from entering the meeting, saying that the room had reached maximum capacity. About 20 shareholders inside took turns interrupting the CEO while he tried to give his speech. They were escorted out of the meeting. The meeting ended in 37 minutes (compared to 2.5 hours in previous years), with not a single question, largely due to the turmoil both outside and inside the meeting and the fact that Wells packed the room with their own employees.
While the media coverage portrayed the events as part of the Occupy movement, PICO groups in the Bay Area, SEIU, NPA, ACCE, AJS, NBL and other organizing groups provided the core leadership for the event.
Spring/Summer Issue of JPIC Report now available! April 26th, 2012
The Spring/Summer Issue of our bi-annual print newsletter is now available on-line. (Download the PDF…)
This issue includes articles on Global HIV/AIDS funding, a new organic farm at Oblate headquarters in Washington, the human reality at the US/Mexican border, shareholder advocacy in the financial sector, human trafficking and environmental issues: from biodiversity loss and climate change to OMI JPIC work in solidarity with Bangladeshi colleagues and new solar panels on an Oblate church in California.
Walmart Investors Voice Deep Concerns over Bribery Allegations April 24th, 2012
Shareholders Identified Company’s “Aggressive and Competitive” Growth Strategies as Lacking Ethical Standards in a 1999 Letter to Management
Members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) , a coalition of faith-based and responsible institutional investors that have been actively engaging Walmart on social environmental, and governance issues are dismayed by recent reports in the NY Times alleging systematic bribery and corruption beginning in 2005 to facilitate the rapid expansion of their retail operations in Mexico. The Missionary Oblates is an active member of ICCR and engaged in the dialog with Walmart.
Said Sr. Barbara Aires of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, New Jersey who has led the Walmart engagement for over 20 years, “We have a tremendous investment in this company in terms of our time, expertise and yes, capital, and find these allegations deeply disturbing on so many levels. Should these reports be confirmed, we deem this a significant breach of trust and loss of management credibility.”
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Oblates Participate in 10th Harvard University Forum on Islamic Finance April 20th, 2012
Fr. Séamus Finn, OMI participated in the 10th Harvard University Forum on Islamic Finance held in Cambridge, Massachusetts on March 24-25, 2012. He was a panelist in the plenary session on Faith-Based Investment and Social Responsibility.
The Forum brochure offered this summary of the proceedings:
The Tenth Forum features three main parallel sessions, which reflect three major themes within the topic of economic development. These include the Islamic financial sector’s contribution to global economic development, Islamic finance and the development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), and faith-based investment and social responsibility. Apart from these three main sessions, there are also parallel sessions on Islamic finance and the Arab Spring movements, global perspectives on Islamic finance, Islamic finance and alternative economic thinking, and current academic research on product development in the Islamic finance industry. With over 50 speakers and 30 nationalities represented, the forum attracts the leading practitioners from academia and the industry to critically discuss the issues highlighted above with a view to proposing sustainable developmental plans for the Islamic finance industry in general. There is no doubt that this rapidly developing field of the global financial system requires a close scrutiny to maximally harness it for the development of the global economy.Learn more about the Islamic Finance Project…
Goldman Sachs Heeds Faith-based Investors April 16th, 2012
Sister Nora Nash with Fr. Seamus Finn before a meeting with Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s most powerful financial firms, has been forced to pay attention to faith-based shareholder advocacy.
The Rev. Seamus Finn, OMI, Director of the OMI JPIC Office was quoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article: “It’s been a difficult transition for …[Goldman to figure] out how to be a public company.” The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate owns 286,000 shares of Goldman, and agreed after discussions with the firm’s investor-relations chief Dane Holmes to withdraw its proposal focused on Goldman’s practices with clients and tax secrecy. Fr. Seamus explained, “They finally recognized that we’re not going away and they have to at least engage us.”
Father Finn has met in the past with John F.W. Rogers, Goldman’s board secretary, with Mr. Blankfein and Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn.
