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CALL TO ACTION
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ARE YOU IN THE TIAA-CREF RETIREMENT SYSTEM? (If not, you can still help.)
Do you want your money to help build housing
and businesses in low-income communities?
To support socially and environmentally responsible products and services?
(Spend five minutes to support our proposed changes in TIAA-CREF’s socially
responsible fund.)
In the 1980s, participants lobbied the pension giant TIAA-CREF (TC) for five
years to set up a socially responsible fund, the Social Choice Account. Since
then we have successfully lobbied for other changes. Now we are pushing for an
improved fund with practices that are becoming standard in socially responsible
investing (see below). Our effort has been endorsed by many academic and
activist groups, and individuals like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. (See below
for a history of the campaign, including discussion of why we restarted the
effort after TC reneged on certain commitments. Our web site is
www.makeTIAA-CREFethical.org/SocialChoiceForSocialChange.html
HERE'S HOW YOU CAN HELP (other important ways are described
further below):
CONTACT TC
and
ask them to modify the Social Choice Account by investing in low-income area
community development and in social venture capital for companies pioneering
socially responsible products/services. But thank them for establishing a
Department of Social Community Investing in 2006. If you are a participant, let
them know that. Call CEO Herbert Allison at 800-842-2733; 212-490-9000 (monthly,
if you can) or email him at
HAllison@tiaa-cref.org (but calls are preferable). You will be asked to
leave a message with an assistant. Besides your call, strengthen your influence
with a brief message to TIAA-CREF trustees at
trustees@tiaa-cref.org
RECEIVE CAMPAIGN UPDATES (every month or two). Contact
nwollman@bentley.edu to be
added to the list—use subject line of “SCSC updates.”
FORWARD THIS MESSAGE with a short personal endorsement to listserves,
organizations, and your colleagues and friends nationally.
We are also part of a national coalition of activist groups that is pushing for TC to use its shareholder advocacy to influence six target companies display egregious behavior, like Wal-Mart and Coke. After years of lobbying, they agreed to do shareholder advocacy on issues of social responsibility. See http://www.makeTIAA-CREFethical.org for more information. Click here to get updates for the work of the coalition.
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SOCIAL CHOICE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE:
Campaign for a New TIAA-CREF
Social Choice for Social Change is a project of the Peace Studies Institute,
Manchester College. For further information, contact Neil Wollman,
Ph.D.; Senior Fellow, Peace Studies Institute and Professor of Psychology;
Manchester College, North Manchester, IN 46962;
nwollman@bentley.edu .
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Social Choice for Social Change: TIAA-CREF Broke Its Promises, We Restarted the Campaign
Since 1984, we have lobbied educational pension giant ($ 400 billion) TIAA-CREF
(TC) to be more socially responsible in its investing. They resisted our efforts
for years, but as a result of our pressure and dialogue, TC created a socially
responsible fund [the Social Choice Account (SCA), now with over $ 8 billion in
investments --and with a strong financial return record].
For many years we have pressured TC to further improve the SCA by adding (a) low-income area community investment; (b) social venture capital (in new companies promoting socially and environmentally responsible products/services); (c) shareholder advocacy (voting on shareholder resolutions and lobbying portfolio companies to advance social and environmental responsibility); and (d) screening investments by using positive (not just negative/exclusionary) criteria, thus seeking companies that make a positive contribution to society. All of these are quite feasible and have been done successfully in other socially responsible mutual funds. They are also consistent with TC’s own Policy Statement on Corporate Governance and its advertising tagline of "Financial Services for the Greater Good." The campaign has been endorsed by dozens of academic and activist groups.
Using a variety of tactics—getting publicity to the public, generating hundreds of calls and emails to TC’s offices, leafleting at conferences where TC representatives spoke, doing demonstrations—we finally succeeded in getting TC to listen.. In 2002 they made one important change (positive screening) and in April 2004, TC officers finally agreed to seriously address our proposal and subsequently made various commitments to move forward. However, though we stuck with our promise to put our public campaign on hold, TC only fulfilled one of our requests, to use its shareholder advocacy to influence the corporate and social responsibility of its portfolio companies.
And so the campaign is back in full gear. We need your help if we are to succeed again. Even if you are not in the TC retirement system, you can promote the campaign.
Most importantly, contact TC
to express your support for the changes to the SCA described above. (If you are
a TC participant, note that.) Call CEO Herbert Allison at 800-842-2733;
212-490-9000 (ask for him and leave a message with his assistant). You can email
him at HAllison@tiaa-cref.org, but a
call is much preferable. If you can call once a month, that’s even better.
Forward this message widely,
to colleagues and friends.
Sign up for campaign updates (email
nwollman@bentley.edu to
receive one every month or two —in subject line, say “SCSC updates.”; also, you
can receive updates on the work of the broader “Make TIAA-CREF ethical”
coalition—say “MTCE updates” www.MakeTIAA-CREFethical.org
).
Let us know (nwollman@bentley.edu
) which of the following you can do, as your time allows:
a. contact or ‘adopt’ a TC
trustee in your area
b. visit a local TC office
c. participate in demonstrations or leafleting in your area (or at annual TC
meetings)
d. further promote the issue to colleagues beyond forwarding this message
e. ask your organization/institution to endorse our effort; then tell TC
f. express your concerns to TC representatives visiting your campus
g. liaison with other groups with similar interests
h. distribute our TC money at conferences, demonstrations, and otherwise
i. help on media
j. flier outside the TC national off (Manhattan) once a week or once a month by
yourself or with others
k. get your college president to write a letter to TC.
l. get creative: cook up some new tactics, or suggest them to us
Thanks so much,
Neil Wollman, Ph.D.
Chair, Social Choice for Social Change: Campaign for a New TIAA-CREF
Senior Fellow, Peace Studies Institute, and Professor of Psychology, Manchester
College
nwollman@bentley.edu
260-982-5346