In the first vote of a nationwide campaign, shareholders of International Harvester last week cast 1,200,000 votes (or 5.2 percent of the total) in favor of a resolution submitted by the American Jewish Congress that would require the company to prepare a detailed report on its policy toward compliance with Arab boycott demands.
An AJCongress spokesman–noting that the Congress owned only five shares of stock in the company–hailed the result as “a remarkable demonstration of public support of our campaign to expose pressures on American industry to surrender to the Arab boycott.”
Edwin M. Epstein, associate dean of the school of business at the University of California and a leader of the AJCongress in San Francisco, presented the resolution at the meeting.
In a statement following the vote, Epstein noted that the number of votes in favor of the AJCongress resolution “comfortably exceeded the three percent required to place the resolution on next year’s agenda automatically.” At the meeting, Epstein said he was aware that International Harvester officials had pledged not to comply with the boycott but that what the AJCongress wanted was a statement on actual practices as well as principle.
Brooks McCormick, president and chief executive officer, responded: “The Arab boycott is a barrier to trade and we are opposed to it as we are to any other trade barrier but if we are to perform responsibly for our shareholders we must cope with it.”
The IH president described the AJCongress’ resolution as “broad and burdensome” and added that it would be costly and might be harmful to the company given the uncertainty of laws and regulations which are now being developed to deal with the situation. He added: “We sell to both Israel and the Arabs and have no intention of changing our policies to make a sale.” McCormick said IH has a policy opposed to discrimination against any employe and that it has been filing reports with the Commerce Department since 1965.
The AJCongress resolution will be voted on at 22 different annual meetings this year. Last month the AJCongress announced it had received written assurances from 22 major U.S. corporations–including General Motors, Scott Paper and Xerox–that they would not comply with the boycott.
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