Seventh Generation Interfaith Coalition for Responsible Investment
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This group was formed as the WI/Iowa/Minn. Coalition for Responsible Investment nearly 40 years ago by Rev. Michael Crosby, OFM, who also played a founding role in the national Interfaith Coalition for Corporate Responsibility. There are several "CRIs" around the country, all affiliates of ICCR. The staff consists only of Fr. Mike, associate director Frank Sherman, and an office assistant, but the group has 25 members, mainly congregations of women religious (also Green Bay diocese and two investment firms), who pay dues (ours are $2000) and participate when possible in shareholder actions under the guidance of 7G and ICCR. They recently changed their name and filed for 501c3 status, and forming a board of directors was a requirement. JPR Director Mark Peters was elected chair of the board at its first meeting.
The Priests of the Sacred Heart, with the approval of the Provincial Treasurer, have been “lead filer” on three occasions with the same company and “co-filer” with several others in the last three years. The one we took the lead on is TJX, the parent company of TJMaxx and other discount stores, and we first did so in 2015. They had agreed the previous year to a dialogue about wage disparity between top executives and floor workers and inadequate starting pay in the hope we would drop the resolution. Our argument was not only that there was a moral issue here of top execs being overpaid (their CEO is near the top of the Fortune 500 list of highest paid) while workers were reportedly eligible for public assistance, but that the stagnating economy that had been keeping down profits at many of their peers was in large part to the inability of the working class to afford to shop for more than essentials. Unfortunately for us, if not for our portfolio, TJX had actually been out-performing its peers and was doing just fine for now, so the bottom line argument, while it had evidence to back it up, was not persuasive to them. As for the moral argument, they argued that their first duty was keeping prices low for their customers and giving a good return to their shareholders. We acknowledged the legitimacy of both these goals, but tried to convince them that they could do even better by doing the right thing by their lowest-paid workers. They argued that they showed the value they put on their “associates” by flexible hours and good working conditions, and that their bottom level workers were very happy. We refused to withdraw the resolution, it was fought by the company and was rejected by the SEC. |
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