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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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