Statement by Chip Pitts, Amnesty Chair of Board, at the ExxonMobil Annual Shareholder Meeting, May 25, 2005
I
am Chip Pitts, Chairman of the Board of Amnesty International USA, former Chief
Legal Officer of another major multinational, and a third generation ExxonMobil
shareholder.
Before I make my statement, I would like to acknowledge the longstanding dialogue between Amnesty, along with our many coalition partners, and ExxonMobil. We appreciate the company’s willingness to sit down at the table with us to discuss the human rights issues faced in the company’s business operations.
I'm here today to raise two issues of concern: non-discrimination with respect to sexual orientation, and reporting on the company's security arrangements with the Indonesia government and private security forces.
Discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, is a human rights abuse. Exxon-Mobil claims to uphold the ILO core labor standards, among them the elimination of discrimination in the workplace. Yet the company has continually refused to explicitly prohibit such discrimination in its workplace hiring policies. Though the stated policy is zero-tolerance and supposed to be completely enforceable, the reluctance to add the words "sexual orientation" to the policy are very troubling, and put the company sadly outside the mainstream for no good reason. Considering that more than 95% of the Fortune 100 have already taken this basic step, Amnesty International does not feel confident that Exxon is doing all it can to uphold its commitment to the ILO core principles or today’s basic human rights standards.
Regarding Indonesia, ExxonMobil has made commendable commitments to revenue transparency through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and has begun to take steps to implement the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. Furthermore, the company’s proxy statement describes its condemnation of human rights violations, and the fact that the company has expressed these views to "governments and others around the world." Yet vague statements like these do not offer much reassurance. It would be helpful to have additional detail regarding what forums, and to whom, these concerns have been expressed. Who in the Indonesian Government, for example, has heard these concerns, and what assurances have you been provided that human rights will not be violated as security is provided for your facilities?
It is important and in the interests of all company shareholders that Exxon is both implementing, and transparently seen to be implementing, the Voluntary Principles on Security in a way that ensures that the government of Indonesia, whose military's human rights violations in Aceh have been well documented by Amnesty International, is not violating human rights in providing security for ExxonMobil’s facilities.
