Inside:
MEETING NOTICES
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Page 6
Volume 115
Number 11
June 6, 2014
Portland, Oregon
City of Portland rolling back Walmart bond investments
The City of Portland on May 15 put
into action its new “socially responsi-
ble investment policy” by disinvesting
in a $9 million Walmart corporate
bond. It is the first of five bonds total-
ing $36 million that the City won’t re-
new when they mature.
The action was applauded by United
Food and Commercial Workers Local
555.
“The Portland City Council is to be
commended for the effort to create a
socially responsible investment policy
that respects workers’ rights, our envi-
ronment and the responsible use of
Oregon taxpayer dollars,” said Local
555 Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Anderson.
The investment policy was intro-
duced last October by first-term Com-
missioner Steve Novick.
The City’s investment portfolio
ranges from $940 million to $1.29 bil-
lion and averages about $1.08 billion
during the year. It can’t invest in the
stock market, but it can put money in
low-risk U.S. Treasury securities, U.S.
Government securities, bank CDs, and
corporate bonds.
“We have a bunch of bonds, and it
turned out we had no criteria to deter-
mine what company’s bonds we would
or would not buy,” Novick said at a
May 15 press conference announcing
the disinvestment in Walmart.
Novick talked to his colleagues last
year and they concluded that it was rea-
sonable to have a policy to guide the
City on what bonds it would purchase.
The policy they adopted in October
looks at how a company treats its work-
Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick announces the beginning of the City’s disinvestment in Walmart bonds. He
was joined by members and leaders of UFCW Local 555, Yvette Brown of OUR Walmart (right), and Pastor Tara
Wilkins (center) of Bridgeport United Church of Christ.
ers — and its general ethical conduct,
whether it abuses market power, its im-
pact on human health and the environ-
ment.
“We looked at Walmart and we
looked at its record of abusing workers,
its record of abusing market power, the
massive bribery scandal in Mexico, and
Upcoming
Supreme Court case
bigger threat than
unions realize
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — A recently argued U.S. Supreme
Court case pushed on the justices by the National Right to Work
Committee is an even bigger threat to unions than everybody real-
izes, says a top Service Employees International Union (SEIU) at-
torney who worked on the union’s friend-of-the-court brief.
And, anticipating that the majority of the justices may rule
against her union in the case, Harris vs. Quinn, SEIU is already
considering new ways of approaching and organizing workers, said
we concluded that it was a company
where it’s common knowledge that
they violate a number of these princi-
ples —we can put them on the do not
buy list. So that’s what we did,” Novick
said.
In addition to prohibiting the pur-
chase of any more Walmart bonds, the
City Council created a temporary advi-
sory committee to come up with a
process to apply social criteria to its in-
vestment portfolio. The advisory com-
mittee will make its recommendations
to the City Council sometime after July
31.
“From what I can tell, no other U.S.
union counsel Nicole Berner.
Berner’s warning came at a May 13 panel discussion at the Cen-
ter for American Progress, a progressive think tank. Panelists were
scheduled to talk about the First Amendment — which guarantees
freedom of speech — and campaign finance. They covered several
recent High Court rulings, including one that opened the floodgates
for unlimited flow of campaign dollars from corporations and the
uber rich.
The court uses the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee to
declare that “money is speech” and let the cash flow. But Berner said
the justices may use the amendment’s right of free association to
grant the right-to-work crowd’s demand: To bar unions from col-
lecting dues — even money specifically for contract bargaining and
administration — from any worker.
The Right to Work Committee and some dissident home care
workers in Illinois said that by charging a fee for administering the
contract, the union was violating their First Amendment right of free
association, Berner explained. Lower courts tossed out the case, say-
ing the Right to Work Committee had no right to sue because the pay-
ments didn’t hurt that group. But the Supreme Court took the case.
Illinois (the “Quinn” in the case is Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn)
city has looked at socially responsible
investing in quite the same way as Port-
land,” Novick said. “I’m hopeful other
cities and states take note and adopt
similar investment principles to hold
companies accountable and align our
investment policies with our values.”
At the May 15 press conference,
Novick was joined byYvette Brown, a
fired Walmart employee-turned-activist
with the OUR (Organization United for
Respect) Walmart campaign in Califor-
nia; Pastor Tara Wilkins of Bridgeport
United Church of Christ; and Bob Mar-
shall, a Local 555 union representative
and organizer.
Marshall said the business model of
many U.S. corporations is to privatize
the profit and socialize the cost of do-
ing business.
“Many corporations get huge tax
breaks and pay low taxes while throw-
ing the cost of workers’ health care and
food assistance programs on to the tax-
payers,” he said. “The companies keep
all the profit and the taxpayers foot the
bill because corporations like Walmart
do not pay a living wage or provide
proper health care for employees.”
A report by the Oregon Department
of Human Services several years ago
listed Walmart as the top employer
whose workers receive public taxpayer
assistance.
Brown said in her two years work-
ing at Walmart she barely made mini-
mum wage, and couldn’t get enough
hours to qualify for health insurance
(Turn to Page 3)
and the feds want the justices to dismiss the case. The court will is-
sue a decision by the end of June.
If the justices rule in the Right to Work Committee’s favor, they
would in one stroke “turn all 50 states into right-to-work states”
where public employee unions cannot insert provisions in contracts
calling for dues deductions, Berner said. “By judicial fiat, right to
work then becomes the law of the land.” The justices would be say-
ing “our whole collective bargaining system violates the First
Amendment.”
As a result of such a ruling, public employee unions would have
to rely on voluntary contributions, and the track record of that shows
revenues fall drastically. Public sector unions in Wisconsin saw their
revenues fall by half after Republican Gov. Scott Walker rammed
legislation through cutting off dues collections. By yanking away
the source of unions’ money, “this decision would weaken the entire
labor movement and the whole progressive community, because of
the strength labor provides to it,” Berner warned.
Preparing for a worst case scenario, Berner says it leaves unions
an alternative: To become a membership organization like the
NAACP “where it could build power and people in the broad sense.”
“This case is pushing us faster in that direction,” she said.