Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post is reporting that the Netherlands’ biggest pension fund, Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds (APB), with more than $300 billion in assets, announced that it was blacklisting the largest retailer in the world for noncompliance with the United Nations’ Global Compact principles. The article cites poor labor practices and the company’s anti-union stance as the driving forces behind APB’s decision.

“On Tuesday, the Netherlands’ biggest pension fund, Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds, with more than $300 billion in assets, announced that it was blacklisting the largest retailer in the world for noncompliance with the United Nations’ Global Compact principles. The Global Compact presents a set of core values relating to human rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption efforts. ..ABP said on Wednesday that the decision to pull its investment from Walmart was not hasty. The fund declined to say how much money is involved, but according to ABP records, it had invested some 95 million euros, worth $121 million today, in U.S. Walmart stores as of June 30, 2011. The fund first sent a letter to Walmart executives in 2008, a year after ABP formalized its responsible-investing policy. Four years later, after many meetings with employees and all levels of management, ABP concluded the retail giant was still falling short.”

APB’s action might be something that American labor unions might push for in this country.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As a follow-up to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s state of the state address on Wednesday, Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver gave a brief response. Manfred Philipp, University Faculty Senate, posted yesterday on the UFS LISTSERV (see below) that Silver has specifically mentioned proposing an increase in state aid for community colleges.  This would surely help CUNY and SUNY.

Tony

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Text of Email Message from Manfred Philipp

The Governor’s State of the State speech yesterday was well-reported, but Sheldon Silver’s State of the State Presentation, given the same day, was perhaps eclipsed.  What NYS Assembly Speaker Silver said is perhaps important for CUNYs’ community colleges:

“Education, it is said, is the great equalizer and for this reason the Assembly Majority has been a longtime champion of educational investment. To strengthen the third rung of the ladder, we are proposing to increase the state’s support for our community colleges.

With high unemployment and widespread under employment, more and more of our citizens are looking to community colleges for a new path to a better life. By law, this state is obligated to fund up to 40-percent of the operational budgets of our community colleges, but only once in four decades has the state fully met that obligation. Now, when these learning centers are so important to our economy, to our companies and to our workers, we must increase our investment in them.”