the churches and southern africa - KORA

ACTION NEWS
CORPORATE RESPONSES TO SPRING ACTIONS
The burgeoning number of church-initiated
stockholders challenges calling for a full disclosure of
company operations in Southern Africa has elicited a
wide range of response from corporate America. A series
of stockholder actions took place this past spring. Since
then, a few target companies have issued reports to their
shareholders, in one form or another, defending their
operations in Southern Africa and invariably touting the
line that increased black wages, employment, and
improved working conditions would all lead to changes in
apartheid.
General Motors and Goodyear Rubber
The first company to respond to the disclosure
resolution (and the largest U.S. investor in South Africa)
was General Motors. In February, when the auto giant
gathered together a roomful of institutional investors,
spokesmen delivered a 7-page defense of its South African
operations, thus pre-empting the thunder of annual
meeting publicity. After this meeting, GM opposed
adoption of the churches' disclosure resolution. Goodyear
was the next to respond, in its proxy materials, claiming
that disclosure would jeopardize the companies' good
relations with the South African Government; nothing has
been heard since. Mobil and IBM sued for peace when the
resolutions crossed their desks, agreeing to fully disclose,
and thus avoid the bad publicity of a proxy battle.
Mobil
"Mobil in South Africa," published in July by Mobil
Oil Corporation, is the most comprehensive report to date
by a U.S. corporation on its operations in Southern
Africa. While comprising four pages, 8 inches by 14
inches, the bulk of the Mobil report is devoted to a series
of impressive looking charts outlining data on the South
African subsidiary's employee positions, wage grades,
application of benefits, training, and figures on company
contributions. All figures are broken down by racial
categories, and spread over a 10-year period for
comparison. 0
Issued as a result of an agreement between the
company and an agency of the United Church of Christ,
the lengthy document also reveals relations with the
South African government, business and charitable
contributions, and company attitudes during the decade
covered by the report.
The United Church Board for World Ministries places
Mobil's performance "among the most sensitive and
progressive in U.S. industry," and Fortune magazine (see
editorial) cites it as an enlightened leader. Mobil itself is
"convinced that our presence in South Africa is clearly
AND NOTES
beneficial to the nonwhite as well as the white
population... Yet the figures paint a portrait of
limited opportunities for black South Africans.
From its report we learn that Mobil began operations
in South Africa in 1897; presently operates a refinery in
Durban; a marketing operation for all of Southern Africa;
a one-quarter interest in offshore prospecting; and a
one-third interest in a new South African refinery. The
total work force of 2,852 persons includes 1,806 whites,
798 Africans, 206 Coloureds, and 42 Asians; 86% of all
African and Coloured employees fall into job categories 1,
1A, 2, ahd 2A on a scale which advances to level 15.
Mobil's desire to elevate blacks to higher skills and better
pay must be questioned since only 8 in-company trainees
in 1,971 were African, compared with 167 whites. In the 8
preceding years, while 992 whites were trained, ONLY
FOUR Africans participated in the training programs.
The average African monthly wage at P4obil in 1972,
according to a computation of figures from the charts
presented with the report, is $148-$6 per month less
than the average family's bare subsistence budget
estimated by the Soweto Urban Bantu Council; 70% of
Mobil's African workers fall into job classifications where
average monthly wages are just $130. Because these
figures include a Christmas bonus of an additional
month's pay, even the starkness of the $130 is more than
actual monthly take home pay of the average wocker.
Mobil claims to be one of the first companies that has
establish a pension plan for its black workers, though the
commencement date and the economic value of this plan
is not given. Most Africans receive medical treatment
through the South African Government, which is,
comments Mobil, "generally considered to be of excellent
quality by international standards"! Mobil's charitable
contributions, too, belie its claimed role as change-agent.
Its $6,625 contribution to the South African Foundation
in 1972 commits its resources to the international
dissemination of pro-South African propaganda.
Educational gifts favor the already privileged whites, who
over the past decade received 7 times more from Mobil
than Africans, Asians, and Coloureds who constitute 88%
of the country's population.
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Mobil is the
subjects it chooses not to disclose, or lightly glances over.
Asked in the resolution to give a "detailed explanation"
of the myriad of apartheid laws that the company is
subject to, Mobil listed but four, without even a word of
explanation on these. Although requested to reveal the
exact nature and extent of its South African military and
government contracts, no charts were to, be seen, but the
company was kind enough to inform us that, yes, it did
indeed contract with Government agencies, without
mentioning a single one, refusing to cite dollar figures, or
even reveal the percentage of total sales devoted to the
military, etc.