The New York City Teachers’ Retirement Board, with assets of nearly $4 billion, has agreed to vote in favor of American Jewish Congress-sponsored resolutions opposing the Arab boycott at annual meetings of corporations in which it holds stock. The board is the first pension fund to take a public position on the issue in response to a campaign by the AJ Congress for support by institutional investors of its anti-boycott resolution.
“We are hopeful that our decision will set off a chain reaction among other institutional investors,” said Wallace F. Sullivan, executive director of the Board. The Board unanimously adopted a resolution at its Jan. 20 meeting vowing to resist “the effort of Arab-bloc countries to involve Americans in their boycott of Israel and to import discriminatory practices in the U.S.”
The Board resolution authorized Sullivan to vote the fund’s stock in favor of “any resolution which calls for a report to the shareholders on the extent and involvement, if any, of the corporation in the boycott and which calls upon the corporation to refrain from participating in such boycott.”
The Teachers’ Retirement Board owns stock in 17 of 43 major U.S. corporations that have been targeted by the AJ Congress in its 1977 anti-boycott campaign. Through the introduction of shareholders’ resolutions, these companies are being asked to make public the extent of their involvement in the boycott, their policies regarding the boycott and the steps they are taking to prevent discrimination against Jewish employees.
The Teachers’ Retirement System is one of approximately 300 institutional investors across the country being solicited by the AJ Congress for support of its anti-boycott resolutions. These include pension funds, foundations, university endowment funds, church bodies, banks and mutual funds.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
