Episcopal Press and News
Corporate Investments Pose Ethical Dilemma for Southern Ohio Trustees
Episcopal News Service. November 8, 1991 [91225]
Ariel Miller, Correspondent for Interchange in the Diocese of Southern Ohio
"If we are in fact benefiting from the mistreatment of other human beings, it's our responsibility as Episcopalians and Christians to know that, and try to the extent humanly possible to change it."
With this statement, Chester Lyman of Dayton -- one of five trustees of the Diocese of Southern Ohio -- expressed concerns that led the trustees to vote in favor of a shareholder's resolution calling on Procter and Gamble (P&G) to answer allegations that its business practices were indirectly supporting violence and repression in El Salvador.
The resolution directed at P&G -- one of the largest multinational producers of soaps, paper products, and processed foods -- asked the company to inform shareholders of all sources from which it buys Salvadoran coffee, to respond to the evidence linking coffee growers to death squads and violence against workers, and to explain its reasons for continuing to buy Salvadoran coffee.
As the people responsible for what may be the largest block of P&G shares owned by any Episcopal Church-related institution, the Southern Ohio trustees found themselves hampered by what they perceived to be evasiveness by company management on troubling evidence that Salvador's coffee revenues may be an instrument of oppression.
For almost a decade, the Episcopal Church has been working both in El Salvador and in the United States for policies that would overcome the widespread abuse of human rights in El Salvador. Those efforts include refugee relief in El Salvador, agricultural development projects in the midst of a civil war, and determined advocacy for a negotiated peace.
For years the church has called for an end to U.S. military aid as a first step in controlling the violence that has killed as many as 75,000 Salvadorans and driven almost 20 percent of the people of this tiny country from their homes. But the idea of other economic sanctions -- in this case, the boycott of Salvadoran coffee -- is not one on which the church has taken a stand. There is powerful evidence both to support and to criticize a boycott.
The trustees' challenge to the company illustrates the often painful issues Episcopalians face when they try to be good stewards of their influence in large corporations. Procter and Gamble and the Diocese of Southern Ohio are both based in Cincinnati, and their history has been linked through generations of Episcopalians who have played vital roles in serving both.
Although the trustees of the diocese have a strong record of voting corporate proxies in favor of social justice resolutions, this was the first time in anyone's memory that they had ever voted against P&G management.
Few people at the October 8 annual shareholders' meeting in Cincinnati were likely to miss the symbolism as the diocese voted a huge block of shares originally donated by William Cooper Procter, grandson of the company's cofounder. Procter, who died in 1934, was one of the most influential laymen of his generation in the Episcopal Church locally, nationally, and internationally.
As the officials responsible for 128,000 P&G shares in the William Cooper Procter Fund, the diocesan trustees found themselves in the position of having to weigh the evidence from El Salvador against the company's current policy.
Supporters of the Salvadoran boycott report that P&G management was initially receptive to their evidence and recommendations until White House Chief of Staff John Sununu and State Department officials in early 1990 began to pressure American coffee roasters to continue to buy Salvadoran beans.
Since then, P&G has refused requests by peace groups, shareholders, and consumers to stop purchasing Salvadoran coffee. The company cites the State Department's stand, the opposition of Salvadoran Roman Catholic bishops to the boycott, and its own concern for coffee workers as major reasons -- adding that the emphasis should be on negotiations, not economic sanctions.
However, many Salvadorans feel that negotiations alone, while crucial, cannot succeed without other kinds of international pressure on plantation owners, who have consistently undermined efforts to address rural poverty, as well as political and economic oppression, that are the fundamental causes of the civil war.
"We think this kind of economic pressure is creating peace for our country," said one eminent Salvadoran religious leader last fall. "The boycott is a very positive action," he said, "since coffee growing is in the hands of the oligarchy, who are in cahoots with the armed forces who kill the people."
During the shareholders' meeting, the Rev. Hal Porter of the Presbyterian Church announced that the trustees of the Diocese of Southern Ohio had decided to join the coalition of religious institutions voting for the resolution.
It was a moment full of poignancy for Episcopalians there. Deeply committed members of the church, some in management, others voting their personal proxies, and one representing shares donated by a famous Episcopalian named Procter, found themselves on opposite sides.
"I found myself thinking, 'What would Mr. Procter have said?"' former trustees president Chet Cavaliere said, a few days after the vote. "Some people have been saying that he must be rolling over in his grave."
"I don't think so," Cavaliere concluded, with a hint of wryness. "William Cooper Procter was a very deeply Christian man, and I don't think he'd object to our voting our consciences as Christians."