Twentieth "official" TIAA-CREF (TC) Coalition Update --mainly for TC participants with an interest in social responsibility by TC

Hello TIAA-CREF Campaigners:

It's been over two months since the last update, mainly because little has happened. As you may remember, we met with several TC reps on February 2 in New York. Though the meeting was friendly and they seemed open, we got no real answers or assurances, and follow-up letters from us have been unsuccessful in gaining such answers. If we take them at their word—and I do—they have investigated our concerns further, and they are now drawing up a document that will set guidelines on how they will do shareholder activism on issues of social responsibility. (We had lobbied for such activism and they finally agreed to that over the summer.) But we want their shareholder activism to target particular companies, like Coke, and that's what we want to hear about from them.

TC is also conducting a survey of participants on issues of social responsibility, which includes a number of questions relevant to community investing and one on social venture capital. These are the prime concerns of the Social Choice for Social Change campaign, one of our coalition partners.

Our coalition group reps feel that with the length of our campaign, the meeting we had with them, and the letters we have sent asking for more specificity, we need more definitive answers now. So, we have sent them a strong letter, noting our frustrations and stating that we are restarting some efforts we had suspended around the time of our February meeting, and setting a deadline after which we will begin more intense pressure if we do not get a more definitive positive response to our concerns.  

We felt that at this point of the campaign we needed to be direct, specific, and demanding. We hope it will bring a positive response. If not, we will be setting out on a more intense course of action, as we have done successfully in the past. If that becomes necessary, I will give it my all, as much as I can in my part time work on this, and we hope that each of you will do your piece as well, when asked. We will let you know---as the struggle continues.

Neil 

Neil Wollman, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow, Peace Studies Institute, and Professor of Psychology

Manchester College

MC Box 135

North Manchester, IN  46962

260-982-5346

nwollman@bentley.edu

 

P.S. While writing this update, I received the Quarterly TC publication "Advance" and saw that TC's Social Choice Equity fund for the public was one of their highest rated finds, 4 out of 5 possible stars (by an outside rating group). (This fund is similar to their pension system Social Choice Account, but the latter includes bonds.)  This is "Doing well by doing good," as the relevant investment-related quote goes.