P&G; Holders Weigh Salvador Coffee Bean Ban
James Gamble, a great-great grandson and namesake of one of the founders of Procter & Gamble Co., today will ask shareholders to help him try to stop P&G; from buying Salvadoran coffee beans.
Gamble and others believe that tax revenues from coffee--El Salvador’s leading export--support the government in its civil war with leftist guerrillas. His resolution, to be voted on at the company’s annual meeting in Cincinnati, calls for suspension of coffee bean purchases until the war is settled.
“As a shareholder, I’m using my rights as a part owner of the company to have a say in the corporate policy to solve social problems,” said Gamble, 27, who said he was unaware he was an heir to P&G; founder James Gamble until 18, when he inherited $1.8 million.
A research technician in plant pathology in Massachusetts, Gamble is co-sponsoring the resolution along with stockholder Patricia Close of Seattle. He said he was motivated by the San Francisco-based group Neighbor to Neighbor, which began a nationwide boycott of Salvadoran coffee last year after the murders of six Jesuit priests and two female witnesses, which the organization called the “latest abominations in a civil war that has taken over 70,000 lives.”
“The board is urging shareholders to vote against the proposal,” P&G;’s Donald Tassone said.
He said the firm is “doing the right thing” because the U.S. government and the Catholic bishops of El Salvador are concerned that the boycott, if successful, “is not in the best interest of the many people in El Salvador who depend on it (coffee) for their livelihood.” He said Folgers contains less than 2% Salvadoran coffee.
Gamble, who spent seven days in El Salvador in September talking to trade unions, peasant cooperatives, Lutheran and Roman Catholic bishops and human rights commissions, said: “The majority of the people we met have the feeling that there’s a possibility some workers will lose some jobs. We got a lot of support. The people most likely to be affected embraced us. The threat of the resolution can only be seen as positive because it brings many players into the (civil war) negotiations.”
