Caterpillar is holding its annual shareholder meeting in Chicago this coming June 10th. Help us bring thousands of letters directly to the Board of Directors. Sign a letter to CAT by June 9, and we will print it and hand-deliver it for you.
If you will be in Chicago on the 10th, the day of the shareholder meeting, join a street protest outside the shareholder meeting.
JVP will be at the shareholder meeting for the sixth consecutive year. Our resolution is sponsored by an interfaith coalition that includes the Sisters of Loretto, the Mercy Investment Program, and over 10 additional Catholic congregations. This year, our resolution calls for CAT to issue a comprehensive report on its foreign sales of weapons-related products. We were stunned to find out that these sales to Israel and every other foreign government comprise only a negligible 0.06% of CAT’s 2008 sales and revenues of $51.324 billion.
The company knows well how much suffering that small percentage really buys in Palestine, in terms of homes demolished, trees uprooted, and lives ruined.
The use of Caterpillar equipment to violate Palestinian human rights has been extensively documented in human rights reports (by Human Rights Watch, War on Want, Amnesty International and others) and has been conveyed to Caterpillar in different ways over the years: 6 annual shareholder resolutions, a letter from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a lawsuit on behalf of the family of activist Rachel Corrie and four Palestinian families whose homes were demolished by Caterpillar bulldozers, and countless street protests around the world.
Caterpillar has so far been deaf to these concerns. As a consequence, the Presbyterian Church USA and United Methodist Church have seriously considered divesting from Caterpillar. The Church of England and Hampshire College have already divested more than $3 million in Caterpillar stock. More recently, a group of 20 Israeli human rights organizations have petitioned the Norwegian government to divest its pension fund from a list of companies providing support for Israel’s military occupation, including Caterpillar.
Jewish Voice for Peace
(Submitted by reader)