NOVANEWS
Dear All,
By now, those of you who are CREF investors should have received its proxy report. In that report, something is missing and something is odd.
Missing from the report is a participant proposal that called on CREF to start encouraging companies that profit from the demolition of Palestinian homes and from the building of illegal Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in which CREF owns stock, to end these violations of international law. The proponents hoped to give participants like you a chance to share your views on this issue with TIAA-CREF. But it refused to include the proposal in the proxy materials you received. The company does not want to share this information with CREF investors. Nor does it want to hear your views on the subject.
What’s odd is the location of the annual meeting. Since 2005, all but one CREF annual meetings have been held in New York City. This year, CREF will be meeting far from NYC, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Aaron Levitt, one of the CREF participants who submitted the participant proposal, had this to say: “CREF may try to run away, but a company whose motto is “financial services for the greater good” cannot sweep human rights concerns under the rug. This is neither responsible investment nor shareholder democracy.”
As a TIAA-CREF participant who has signed the campaign petition, you probably agree. You can help keep these concerns front and center as the annual meeting nears. Here are two things you can do:
1. Help boost attendance at the meeting in Charlotte. If you can go to the meeting yourself, please do. All TIAA-CREF participants are entitled to attend. If you have friends or colleagues in North Carolina’s Triangle Area, forward this email to them and ask them to go to the meeting.
2. Encourage others to sign the campaign petition to TIAA-CREF. Forward this email and ask your colleagues and friends to sign the petition at wedivest.org.
While TIAA-CREF refuses to share your views with your fellow participants, it cannot silence you. Together, without the proxy proposal that TIAA-CREF should have shared with all CREF participants, we can still forcefully send the message to TIAA-CREF that profiting from the suffering of Palestinians is not right, and we don’t want to retire on such profits.
Thanks.
Barbara Harvey,
Attorney and TIAA-CREF participant
Barbara Harvey,
Attorney and TIAA-CREF participant
