10th Floor, Braamfontein Centre
23 Jorissen Street
Braamfontein, 2017
Johannesburg
South Africa
 
02 December 2015
Dear Friends and Comrades,
 
FIN24: WOOLWORTHS FACES DISINVESTMENT OVER ISRAEL TRADE
Six trade unions with membership of over half a million members have called on Woolworths to end its Israeli trade or face dis-investment. The unions include significant contributors to the Public Investment Corporation, which is the largest institutional shareholder in Woolworths Holdings Limited. Click here for more information.
 
PALESTINIAN JOURNALIST INVITES WW DIRECTORS TO HER HOMELAND

At the recent Woolworths Shareholder AGM a Palestinian journalist invited the directors of the company to visit her homeland and witness for themselves the Israeli oppression of her fellow Palestinian people. Click here for more info.
 
SCREENING OF AWARD-WINNING PALESTINE FILM "PARADISE NOW"
 
 
 
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INL BUSINESS REPORT: "WOOLWORTHS DIRECTORS GRILLED OVER ISRAEL TRADE AT SHAREHOLDER AGM"
Priests, youth leaders, trade unionists and several BDS supporters from the Jewish community attended -- as shareholders -- the recent AGM of Woolworths Holdings Limited. NC4P and BDS SA activists bought single shares in the company in order to attend its AGM and raise issues regarding, amongst others, the company's trade with Israel. 
 
The Woolworths AGM was dominated by the boycott Israel campaign as well as the company’s treatment of workers, its clothing imports and outsourcing of security to the controversial G4S Security company (see below for more information and full list of questions).
 
Attending a company's AGM to advance certain human rights issues by “shareholder-activists” is a practice inspired by the anti-apartheid movement, which had priests, trade unionists and others attending the AGMs of multinational companies that were trading with Apartheid South Africa. In the 1980s shareholder-activists would attend an AGM to raise the boycott of Apartheid South Africa. Today shareholder-activists are attending AGMs of multinational companies like G4S, Woolworths and others to advance the boycott of Israel. Click here for an INL Business Report article covering the Woolworths AGM.
 
WOOLWORTHS ALSO CHALLENGED FOR LABOUR EXPLOITATION, CLOTHING IMPORTS & OUTSOURCING
 
NC4P and BDS SA shareholder-activists went beyond the boycott of Israel at the recent Woolworths AGM to also challenge the company on its outsourcing of security to the controversial security company G4S, its clothing imports disadvantaging local manufacturers, its labor practices and specifically its dispute with workers at the WW Gauteng Distribution Centre.
 
Activists pointed out the discrepancy between Woolworths directors receiving 40%-70% salary increases while some workers were being paid as little as R3500 at one of the largest and busiest WW distribution centres in the country.
 
Furthermore activists argued that Woolworths hypocritically claimed that they support education (for example with their Pharrell Williams marketing campaign) yet they provide only R250 a year as an education allowance for the children of their Distribution Centre workers as reported by trade union representatives. Click here for a full list of questions that were asked at the recent Woolworths AGM.
 
 
 
BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL in SOUTH AFRICA (BDS SOUTH AFRICA)
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