Advertisement

Text of the Corporation Statement

Appendix-Excerpt From Report of the ACSR

Any company that decides to stay in South Africa should adhere to the following:

1. Employment Practices and Policies. The ACSR believes that companies that operate in South Africa should follow employment practices that will ameliorate the effects of apartheid with respect to their own employees, even where such action impinges on profitability. Specifically, we believe that all companies operating in South Africa should implement the principles first proposed in 1977 by the Rev. Leon Sullivan, a director of General Motors Corporation, and to date endorsed by at least 61 corporations. Implementation of these principles would require a company to:

a. eliminate segregation of the races in all eating, comfort, and work facilities;

b. institute equal and fair employment practices for all employees;

c. provide equal pay for all employees doing equal or comparable work for the same period of time;

Advertisement

d. initiate and develop training programs that will prepare, in substantial numbers, blacks and other non-whites for supervisory, administrative, clerical, and technical jobs;

e. increase the number of blacks and other non-whites in management and supervisory positions;

f. improve the quality of employees' lives outside the work environment in such areas as housing, transportation, schooling, recreation and health facilities.

In addition, as suggested in a letter, dated November 7, 1977 from Hugh Calkins, a member of the Harvard Corporation, to 57 portfolio companies, the ACSR believes that companies operating in South Africa should:

g. establish the lowest level of wages at a level sufficiently high to provide a generally acceptable adequate living wage;

h. adopt a policy which permits nonwhite workers to bargain collectively on matters relating to wages and conditions of employment.

2. Disclosure of Activities in South Africa. Mr. Calkins' letter also asked that companies provide a continuing report to permit interested shareholders to assess for themselves the progress being made by a company with respect to its employment policies and practices. Amplifying that suggestion, the ACSR believes that a company continuing to operate in South Africa should provide:

a. a description of its product lines and services available in South Africa;

b. a report on the company's sales to the South African government and its public corporations, including both sales volume and a description of products provided or services rendered;

c. a report on the company's labor practice and policies in South Africa and the extent to which they meet the criteria for such practices and polices as set forth in 1 above, including in that report the following:

Advertisement