Ethics Newsline®

NEW YORK
The August 12 edition of the New York Times features a profile of sister Patricia Daly, an activist from the order of the Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, New Jersey, who is also the executive director of an alliance of Roman Catholic investors who use their pension funds to pressure companies to take action on ethical issues.

Times writer Dashka Slater notes that Daly’s type of activism is a relatively new phenomenon in the corporate world.

“While shareholders are technically the owners of a company,” Slater writes, “corporate executives have tended to view them the way a symphony orchestra might view its subscribers. The last thing the symphony expects is for its concertgoers to start giving the oboist pointers on her technique, or to suggest that the conductor choose a different program of composers.”

“Yet that is exactly the sort of thing that has been happening at shareholder meetings nationwide, thanks to the fall of Enron, the rise of socially responsible investment funds, a new sense of mission on the part of institutional investors and an Internet-age impulse toward participatory democracy,” the Times continues. “At CitiGroup’s annual meeting in April, for instance, Chairman Charles Prince listened patiently for nearly three hours while shareholders sounded off on subjects ranging from business strategy to tooth decay.”

The story focuses on Daly’s interaction with ExxonMobil, and the pressure she and other activists are mounting to persuade the company to help reduce global warming.