News
Page 4
Street Roots • Nov 18-24, 2016
ILLUSTRATION BY PHOEBE O;
Dozens of local
organizations tell
Portland City
Council it’s time
to stop investing
taxpayer dollars
in privateprison
profiteers
DIRK MONEY
BY EMILY GREEN
bankroll the private prison industry and
Caterpillar, which manufactures equipment
n the wake of a presidential election that custom designed to bulldoze Palestinians’
homes and is a key contractor in the
spurred an overnight upsurge in private
construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
prison stock value, Portland City Council
While the city sold its remaining HSBC
is being asked to rid the city’s investment
holdings
in January 2015 and owns no
portfolio of financial institutions that profit
Caterpillar stock, it currently owns shares
from private prisons.
worth $96.3 million in the other three
The timing is purely coincidental.
banks, representing 7.2 percent of its total
The opportunity comes in the form of a
investment portfolio, which as of Sept 30
list of recommendations submitted to City
was
worth $1.3 billion.
Council in late September from the city’s
The
committee estimated that potential
Socially Responsible Investments
losses in revenue from investments in these
Committee.
three banks, if no equivalently yielding
It’s asking council to add nine companies
investments are found, could be between $4
to the city’s Corporate Securities Do-Not-
million and $5.1 million over a three-year
Buy List, and four of them are major
term.
financial supporters of private prisons -
City Council has set aside three hours for
Wells Fargo, Bank of New York Mellon
public testimony on the committee’s
Corp., JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. and
proposed recommendations from 2 p.m. to
HSBC Bank USA.
5 p.m. during its Nov. 30 meeting and is
Since the release of the list, a broad
expected to vote on what companies it will
coalition of two dozen unions, civil rights
add to the Do-Not-Buy list on Dec. 7.
organizations, churches and other local
The list is currently occupied only by Wal-
community groups, calling itself the
Mart
Portland Prison Divestment Coalition, is
The seven-member advisory committee,
pushing City Council to approve the
championed by Commissioner Steve Novick
committee’s recommendations.
in 2014, also named Amazon.com, Nestlé
Specifically, the coalition wants the city to
Holdings, Credit Suisse and Société
divest from the Wall Street banks known to
STAFF WRITER
I
Générale among the “the worst of the
worst” corporate issuers eligible for city
investments on its first and long-awaited list
of recommendations. Of those, the city is
invested only in Credit Suisse, with $16.9
million in holdings.
The Socially Responsible Investments
Committee is charged with identifying
corporate issuers that don’t align with pre-
established values and ethics.
Among reasons for blacklisting the nine
corporate issuers listed, the committee ,
noted multiple examples of fraud, worker
abuses, corruption and tax evasion among
the companies.
It was concerned about Nestle’s possible
connection to “serious child labor abuses
including forced child labor in the cocoa
supply chain,” Credit Suisse’s criminal
activity and alleged funding of terrorism,
and Amazon.com’s questionable labor
practices, investigations into tax evasion in
the U.K. and France, and concerns about
corrupt corporate ethics.
The banks listed not only fund private
prisons but profited from the subprime
mortgage crisis that led to the Great
Recession, and they have other concerning
See DIVEST, page 5