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President of Oil Workers' Union Tel
Subject: President of Oil Workers' Union Tells Unocal `Outside' Board Members to Take Sta
Thursday July 10 1:42 PM EDT
Company Press Release
Source: Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers
President of Oil Workers' Union Tells Unocal `Outside' Board Members to
Take Stand Against Burma's Dictatorship
Unocal Board Members from Amgen, Mattel, Northwestern University and
University of Michigan to Start Feeling Pressure
LAKEWOOD, Colo., July 10 /PRNewswire/ -- In letters written to four non-
management or outside board members of Unocal Corp., Robert Wages,
president of the 90,000-member Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers
International Union (OCAW), calls on them to ``take a public stand
against Unocal's presence in Burma and to work with other outside board
members to bring about a change in Unocal's policy.'' He added in the
letters that ``anything short of Unocal pulling out of Burma should
prompt you to resign from Unocal's board.''
According to OCAW Special Projects Director Joe Drexler, ``The letters
were written to specific Unocal board members who are particularly
vulnerable to being associated with slave and forced child labor, heroin
trafficking, brutal political suppression, murder and rape of the
civilian population, and other crimes in Burma.''
In a letter to Kevin W. Sharer, president of Amgen Inc., based in
Thousand Oaks, Calif., Wages said that Sharer, as president of a company
``engaged primarily in the development and sales of products to sustain
life,'' should ensure that Unocal's activities are carried out in a
manner that recognizes ``the sanctity of human life'' and that Amgen's
image will be damaged by being linked through Unocal to drug
money-laundering and the illegal sale of drugs.
Wages also wrote John Amerman, chairman of Mattel Inc., headquartered
along with Unocal in El Segundo, Calif., to remind him that as a major
producer of children's toys he should make sure that Unocal's policies
will not harm children,
Wages' letter to Donald Jacobs, dean of J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of
Management at Northwestern University, cites Jacobs' role as an educator
and notes his ``special responsibility to ensure that Unocal's
activities are carried out ethically and to set an example to your
students.'' The letter further states that Jacobs' association with
Unocal will ``taint your professional reputation and that of the Kellogg
Graduate School of Management.'' A similar letter was written to Marina
Whitman, Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy at the
University of Michigan.
Wages in his letters also reminded the Unocal board members that ``the
precedent set at Nuremberg means that corporate officers can be held
responsible for crimes against humanity.'' He refers in the letter to
Burma as ``the concentration camp known as Myanmar,'' the name given to
Burma by the military dictatorship.
``We fully expect that these directors and their companies and
institutions will become targets of the campaign to force Unocal out of
Burma until democracy is restored,'' said Drexler. ``We are giving them
a chance to speak out independently of Unocal management and against the
company's involvement in Burma.''
Wages has been one of the most outspoken critics of oil company and
multinational corporate support for Burma's military dictatorship and is
leading the charge among U.S. labor leaders in calling on the Clinton
Administration to impose economic sanctions on Burma. He has repeatedly
criticized oil companies for downsizing U.S. operations and selling
assets to raise capital for investments in countries governed by
ruthless dictatorships. The downsizings and sales of assets to so-called
low-cost oil refiners, according to Wages, has not only cost U.S.
workers good-paying jobs but has also severely compromised worker and
community safety.
Unocal and French-owned Total SA are partners in the Yadana pipeline
project, which is the single largest source of outside investment in
Burma today. According to the U.S. State Department, Burma's military
dictatorship derives its major revenue from the sale and production of
heroin, much of which ends up on U.S. streets.
"THERE WILL BE NO REAL DEMOCRACY IF WE CAN'T GURANTEE THE RIGHTS OF THE
MINORITY ETHNIC PEOPLE. ONLY UNDERSTANDING THEIR SUFFERING AND HELPING
THEM TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS WILL ASSIST PREVENTING FROM THE
DISINTEGRATION AND THE SESESSION." "WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THEIR
STRENGTH, WE CAN'T TOPPLE THE SLORC AND BURMA WILL NEVER BE IN PEACE."
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