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TIAA-CREF QUESTIONED OVER ISSUES OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Shareholders Raise Voices at CREF Annual Meeting in North Carolina as New York HQ Faces Demonstrations For Immediate Release: Contacts: NEW YORK CITY and CHARLOTTE, NC -- As more questions arise concerning corporate governance and social responsibility at the nation's largest pension fund, social justice advocacy groups will join shareholders to push the $260 billion TIAA-CREF to become more accountable. As demonstrators picket outside the TIAA-CREF headquarters in New York City, shareholders will speak out inside the CREF annual shareholders' meeting in Charlotte, N.C. Pressure groups believe that the fund moved its meeting from the spotlight of NYC in order to avoid the protests and questions raised that dominated last year's meeting. Two shareholder resolutions on corporate governance are on the agenda for the meeting. One asks CREF to reveal its proxy votes, as proposed now by the SEC and opposed here by CREF. The resolution also asks CREF to report on how it takes into account social issues in its investing-as it claims to do. Another resolution would require that different people hold the positions of Chair and CEO. Herbert M. Allison, Jr., formerly President of Merrill Lynch, is taking over for John Biggs as TIAA-CREF Chairman, CEO, and President. "For a group that is indeed a leader in corporate governance reform, TIAA-CREF is amazingly weak and contradictory in a number of areas in their own governance," says Professor Neil Wollman of Manchester College. "The resolutions point out some of these areas. Someone has to watch this watch-dog." Additionally, pressure groups are asking TIAA-CREF to do the following: (1) take action on Unocal and Singapore Technologies, two companies in its stock portfolio that are invested in Burma, a country with one of the world's worst human rights records; (2) drop its stock in Philip Morris, the worlds largest tobacco corporation; (3) remove Nike from the fund's portfolio due the company's notorious sweatshop abuses; and (4) divest of British Petroleum because of this company's involvement in egregious human rights violations associated with gas extraction in Chinese-occupied Tibet. One group, Social Choice for Social Change, has pushed for years for the financial giant to invest, instead, in institutions that make a positive difference in peoples' lives. Outgoing CEO John Biggs had said that he would support the creation of a new retirement fund which did "positive screening", but there was a need to show financial interest from shareholders. To date, shareholders have pledged over $15 million to such a possible fund-but TIAA-CREF still resists. Howard Zinn, noted historian, says, "I hope that more and more people will insist that TIAA-CREF funds be invested in socially responsible ways." University of Pittsburgh Professor Dennis Brutus, the anti-apartheid campaigner who spent time in prison on Robben Island for opposing the racist apartheid government in South Africa, says, "Not only interest, but the interests of the people must be borne in mind when making sound and moral decisions." ### Free Burma Coalition | Global Sweatshop Coalition | Infact | International Tibet Independence Movement
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