Princeton for Workers' Rights protests U. investments

The PWR petition was circulated in support of the campaign has already received more than 300 signatures from members of the University community, and it will ultimately be presented to President Tilghman and the University Board of Trustees, PWR members said.

HEI, the seventh-largest hotel management company in the United States, runs hotels for chains like Hilton, Sheraton, Le Meridien and Marriott. The company is “unique in that its business model relies so much on university investments,” PWR member Julia Solorzano ’10 said.

“Because [the University has] so much money and so much influence, not only economically [but] also morally as a prestigious institution … we’re in a position [where] we can make decisions based on ethics — as we should,” Solorzano added.

PWR members said that representatives from UNITE HERE!, a labor union that represents hotel workers, brought to their attention that the University has tens of millions of dollars invested in HEI. Students in PWR are working with UNITE HERE!, but the group is not affiliated with the union, the students added.

University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 declined to comment on whether the University is invested in HEI. “The University does not disclose the specifics of our investment portfolio for several reasons of financial and investment prudence,” she said in an e-mail.

“HEI has received nearly $1.2 billion in investments from university endowments at schools like Princeton, [the] University of Chicago, Harvard, Yale, and many others,” according to a PWR pamphlet.

“It’s not all HEI workers. It’s not all HEI hotels,” PWR member Sean Gleason ’09 noted. “But a number of HEI workers are referencing being overworked and being underpaid … to the point where many workers have to have multiple employments in order to support themselves and their families.”

Workers at two hotels — the Hilton in Long Beach, Calif., and Le Meridien in San Francisco — have publicized their fight for the right to organize, PWR members noted. In some cases, workers have openly contacted college students for support.

“This is a case where the workers themselves have asked for student support, and they’ve asked us to take action,” PWR member Ben McKean GS said.

The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness about the issue on campus and to compel other student groups to take action as well, PWR members said.

PWR members said they plan to screen films, set up tables in dining halls and bring guest speakers to campus to attract greater attention to and generate support for the campaign in the upcoming months.

Ethics and University investments

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The controversy surrounding the University’s investment in HEI is indicative of larger campus and national issues concerning responsible investment practices.

PWR members said that as a major investor in HEI, the University should take an ethical stance and pressure the corporation to allow its workers a “card check/neutrality agreement” or the right to organize in a fair environment with respect from their employer.

“Typically, accountability is to the investor,” Gleason said. “Students and parents and alumni — we are investors. The University should be accountable to us with respect to where that money goes.”

“We’re not asking Princeton to divest. We understand it’s a difficult time in the economy,” PWR member Sierra Gronewald ’11 said. “But we don’t think that gives anyone an excuse to be uninvolved in where their money is going. We think Princeton should at least be open to dialogue on the issue.”

The lack of transparency relating to Princeton’s investments has drawn scrutiny in the past, most recently in December 2008 concerning the University’s holdings in Zimbabwe.

“There’s no transparency with regards to Princeton investments and where the endowment money goes,” Gleason said, noting that there is no ethical investment committee responsible for investigating such issues.

The University’s investments are managed by the Princeton Investment Company (PRINCO), which does not conduct a regular ethical review of its investments, PRINCO president Andrew Golden said in a December 2008 interview with The Daily Princetonian after an investigation by the campus radio station WPRB revealed that the University may have investment ties to Zimbabwe.

The University’s policy for ethical review is outlined in “Guidelines for Resources Committee Consideration of Investment-Driven ‘Social Responsibility’ Issues.’ ” published in 1997. According to these guidelines, which were issued by the trustees, the Resources Committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) will only consider the ethics of a given holding when there is “considerable, thoughtful, and sustained campus interest in an issue involving the actions of a company or companies in the University’s investment portfolio.”

“The philosophy behind the policy is that an individual’s interest in a social labor issue — or the geopolitical or geo-economic situation in a nation or culture, as the case may be — is not dictated by first reading on an investment filing whether the University invests in a specific holding,” said Cliatt.

According to the guidelines, this interest must persist “over an extended period of time, say two academic years,” for action to be taken. Also considered are the “magnitude, scope, and representativeness of the expressions of campus opinions.” After the requisite interest has been expressed, the Resources Committee considers the issue and may pass a recommendation on to the trustees for approval.

Campus response

The response to the PWR campaign has been overwhelmingly positive, both Gleason and McKean said. “What’s really refreshing is that a lot of students who are prompted inquire into the situation” rather than simply signing the petition without stopping to learn about the circumstances, Gleason noted.

Any negative reaction generally results from a misunderstanding of the campaign’s explicit goals, Gleason said, adding that some students “may be incapable or unwilling to see the situation from the perspective of a worker.”

“The fact is that more often than not, students are very much detached from a situation like this,” he said. “We are in our little bubble — our academic bubble here — and issues of workers’ rights are a completely different world. And very rarely, if ever, do those worlds intersect.”