UFCW | Capital Stewardship Program

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Capital Stewardship Program

UFCW members along with other unions have fought long and hard to secure workers’ retirement, health and welfare benefits. Today, more than $4.1 trillion worth of assets in pension, health and savings funds protect the future of union members and their families. At UFCW-affiliated funds across North America, almost $34 billion in working capital protects our members’ futures. In times when reckless corporate looting and poor risk management — as seen in the recent financial market meltdown that sparked the global economic recession — bring down companies and cost shareholders billions of dollars, the UFCW Capital Stewardship Program spearheads the Union’s efforts to protect the retirement security of UFCW members and promote corporate best practices and reform.

What We Do
The UFCW Capital Stewardship Program protects members’ assets through active ownership of UFCW members’ pensions. These funds own stock in most public companies in the United States as well as large foreign companies. Active ownership means proactively exercising rights as shareholders to engage corporate management on various issues of concern, such as director elections, executive compensation, divestments, and mergers and acquisitions, through voting on proxy items and shareholder engagement.

The UFCW Capital Stewardship Program works with UFCW fund trustees, their investment managers and other related professionals to ensure our members’ assets are managed in their best long-term interests. We also work closely with the CtW Investment Group, the AFL-CIO Office of Investment and the capital stewardship offices of other unions to advance best practices in corporate governance.

As part of our commitment to ensure that the best governance practices are utilized in the companies that our members' retirement funds own, UFCW Executive Vice President Patrick O'Neill was elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII) in 2009. CII is the leading national voice for large institutional investors, including public, union and corporate pension funds whose combined assets total more than $3 trillion. CII works with its members and the public to advance good corporate governance, shareowner rights and related investment issues.

The UFCW Capital Stewardship Program co-founded Americans for Financial Reform, (http://ourfinancialsecurity.org/) a coalition with now over 200 members partnering to reform the nation’s lending industry and financial system to protect Americans’ neighborhoods, homes and pocketbooks.

Resources
The CTW Investment Group
The AFL-CIO Office of Investment
The Council of Institutional Investors
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
The Corporate Library
The Harvard School of Law Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
ShareholderProposals.com

For more information, please contact:

Bill Dempsey Director Capital Stewardship Program UFCW International Tel: 202-466-1527 bdempsey@ufcw.org	Lisa Lindsley Deputy Director Capital Stewardship Program Tel: 202-728-4782 llindsley@ufcw.org
John Marshall, CFA Senior Capital Markets Economist Capital Stewardship Program Tel: 212-701-9466 jmarshall@ufcw.org	Sol Kwon Senior Research Associate Capital Stewardship Program Tel: 202-466-1543 skwon@ufcw.org