CHICAGO (ELCA) -- An advisory committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is recommending that seven resolutions start a long journey toward 1999 shareholder meetings in corporate America. The ELCA Division for Church in Society, through its Advisory Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility, counsels various institutions of the church that invest in stocks.
"Corporate social responsibility is one arm of advocacy by the ELCA that has had a profound effect on the policies and practices of many companies in the past," said Trudy A. Brubaker, ELCA director for corporate social responsibility. "This new set of shareholder resolutions will provide the corporate social responsibility program with the proper tools to meet this challenge for the coming year."
The committee met here Sept. 19. Its advice will be presented to the division's board which meets Sept. 24-26 in Milwaukee.
Generally, resolutions are filed with corporations before the end of each year in preparation for stockholder meetings to be held the following spring. Many resolutions are withdrawn before reaching the stockholder meetings because they prompt significant dialogues between the filer and the corporation's management.
Lutheran institutions are not necessarily the primarily filers of the stockholder resolutions. The division works with its counterparts in about 275 other religious organizations through the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) based in New York.
The ELCA's advisory committee commended seven ICCR-prepared resolutions for Lutheran institutions to pursue this year: * Board Inclusiveness Review -- asks for a report on efforts to encourage diversified representation on the company's board and requests a greater effort to locate qualified women and people of color as nominees for the board; * Ending Negative Images of Indigenous Peoples -- asks the company to review its corporate advertising policies and practices to ensure they exclude negative images of indigenous peoples; * Endorsement of the CERES Principles -- asks the company to endorse specific principles of corporate commitment and accountability for environmental performance; * Equal Employment Diversity Report -- asks for a report summarizing the company's affirmative action policies and charting employment practices regarding women and people of color; * Glass Ceiling Review -- asks for a progress report on the company's efforts to remove any artificial barriers to the advancement of women into corporate management positions; * Proposal for a Global Set of Corporate Standards -- asks for a review of the company's code for its international operations and summarize that review in a report to the shareholders; and * Request for Review of Maquiladora Operations -- asks for a review of the company's policies regarding factories it owns in Mexico.
For information contact:
Frank Imhoff, Assoc. Director 1-773-380-2955 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html
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About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
The ELCA is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, with 2.8 million members in more than 8,500 worshiping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. Known as the church of "God's work. Our hands.," the ELCA emphasizes the saving grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unity among Christians and service in the world. The ELCA's roots are in the writings of the German church reformer Martin Luther.
For information contact:
Candice Hill Buchbinder
Public Relations Manager
Candice.HillBuchbinder@ELCA.org
