The issues shareholders fight companies over don't change much from year to year.

There are still companies with African investments paying taxes to and generally helping out racist regimes and colonial rule. There are still companies making money by supplying the equipment the military uses to teach the peoples of Indochina their place. There are still companies engaging in dubious political activities at home and abroad. And there are still companies whose products and plants could be considerably safer or whose wastes could be disposed of more cleanly. So the battle lines are drawn, it would seem, for some time to come. But the terrain does vary from year to year. This year the battle for Harvard's proxies is being fought on the following ground:

SOUTH AFRICA

The Church Project on U.S. Investments in Southern Africa, a coalition of Protestant denominations is sponsoring resolutions that would force a number of American companies to send their stockholders information on their South African operations.

What the church group wants is detailed figures on how much support U.S. corporation's taxes, "charities," and sales give the South African government; statistics on their treatment of nonwhite workers (most companies claim to be trying to mitigate South Africa's apartheid laws, but their nonwhite workers' average salaries are always lower than their white ones', and nonwhites rarely if ever advance beyond the lowest positions); and accounts of their investments or plans for investment in the Bantustans, undeveloped and generally barren areas where the South African government says it will permit African autonomy.

South African official policy "assumes that South Africa will continue to rely for an indefinite period on a net inflow of foreign exchange to supplement local sources of finance," said a report by the Investor Responsibility Research Center, (IRRG), a factfinding organization Harvard joined other universities and foundations in setting up last Fall. American investment, about 15 per cent of total foreign investment in the country, was close to $1 billion in 1971.

A few companies--notably Ford, Xerox, and Kodak--defused the Church Project resolution by agreeing to disclose the information called for voluntarily. But other companies say they don't want to waste money and effort on gathering facts they think aren't needed. The two corporations Harvard holds stock in, (with the number of shares Harvard owns and the date of the annual stockholder meeting where it will have to take a stand on the Church Project resolution), are GENERAL ELECTRIC (225,000 shares; April 25) and IBM (200,000 shares; April 30). The University will most likely support the resolution, since it voted for it last week in a proxy battle over Caterpillar Tractor's activities.

Last year activist groups sponsored a resolution to have MOBIL OIL (250,000 shares; May 3) disclose information on its South African operations. With most of that information now available, the United Church of Christ has moved on to bigger and better things, notably a shareholder resolution to have the company adhere strictly to principles of fair employment by starting affirmative action programs in "countries where local laws or customs involve discrimination on grounds of race, sex, or religion."

If the IRRC or other groups convince the Corporation committee on shareholder responsibility that Mobil isn't adhering to these principles now, Harvard will probably support this resolution too; otherwise it will probably oppose it as a "Have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife" affair.

In 1966, the United Nations General Assembly revoked South Africa's mandate over Southwest Africa's mandate over Southwest Africa, which it had ruled since 1919, and turned legal authority over the province--renamed Namibia--to a Council of Namibia, which has sat powerless in New York ever since. In 1970, the Security Council endorsed that decision and declared South Africa's presence in Namibia as illegal. The U.S. government has warned American firms still operating in the province--and still making payments to South Africa--that it will not protect them when the Namibians take over, but plenty of companies are continuing undaunted.

So the United Church and the Church Project are sponsoring resolutions to amend the certificates of incorporation of CONTINENTAL OIL (225,000 shares; May 1) and PHILLIPS PETROLEUM (70,000; April 24) to prohibit them from conducting operations in Namibia, and to require them to wind up their current operations there. Harvard has never supported substantive resolutions like this in the past; but because of the clear illegality of South African rule in Namibia it is possible that the Corporation will make an exception in this case.

At any rate, the student-faculty-alumni Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) called last week for support of the Phillips resolution.

The African country whose problem with American investments most Harvard students are most conscious of is probably Angola, because it was Gulf Oil's involvement in that Portuguese colony that sparked the occupation of Massachusetts Hall last Spring. Gulf faces no shareholder resolutions this year, though there is a somewhat desultory boycott of its products.

But the Church Project is sponsoring a resolution to have EXXON (275,000; May 17) establish "a broadbased committee including outside representatives" to investigate the implications of the new oil exploration the company plans to begin off the coast of Angola. Unless Exxon comes up with a tolerably complete study of these implications, which include increased payments to repressive Portugal, it's hard to see how Harvard can oppose this resolution, even if it accepts Portugal's claim that Angola's not a colony at all, but an integral part of Portugal.

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