More on US union investor activism

Don't want to look like I'm favouring the 'splitters' so here are some links to work the AFL-CIO Office of Investment is involved with.

The main Office of Investment site is here:

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/capital/corporategovernance.cfm


If you click on the company initiatives link you can see that the AFL-CIO has been targeting the banks:

AFL-CIO Calls on Subprime Lenders to Halt Foreclosures

As the top five Wall Street firms hand out a record $38 billion in bonuses, the AFL-CIO called for an immediate one-year moratorium on subprime mortgage foreclosures. A sample letter sent to Citigroup is below. In addition to Citigroup, copies of the letter were sent to Countrywide, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Washington Mutual and RBS.

And looking further down you can see some engagement in relation to Burma:

Chevron's Operations in Burma

The AFL-CIO urged Chevron to speak out against Burma's brutul crackdown on peaceful demonstrations by monks. Chevron remains the only U.S. company with significant assets in Burma and is in part responsible for the transfer of millions of dollars to Burma's military regime. It also funds a trade association, which lobbies the federal government and Congress against the imposition of economic sanctions on Burma despite the regime's egregious abuse of human rights.

You can also download the annual proxy voting survey in this section. As I have said before, the US unions are miles ahead of the UK in using shareholder engagement as a tool