NEW ACTION SAYS “ISN’T IT TIME FOR THE UFT TO FULLY DIVEST OUR PENSION MONIES FROM GUN MANUFACTURORS OF ASSAULT WEAPONS”

As the “Day to March for Our Lives” rapidly approaches and our UFT has called on members to join in the national march against gun violence in NYC, New Action can’t help but notice a glaring contradiction regarding our union’s policy. In 2013 five members of the UFT Executive Board co-authored a resolution condemning gun violence and calling for strict restrictions.

Those five included Michael Shulman, Jonathan Halabi, Douglas Haynes (then UFT Exec. Bd. members and leaders of New Action Caucus), Leroy Barr and Dolores Luzapone (members of Unity Caucus). This bipartisan effort was an exemplary example of how working together our union could accomplish important work on behalf of the UFT membership.

Five years later, In 2018, the Teachers Retirement System divested pension fund monies from companies that manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

But what is the total picture regarding this divestment? As Daniel Alicea of EONYC has discovered, TRS as late as 2018 decided that we would stay invested in companies that derived under 5% of their revenues in civilian gun sales. We are still presently invested in index funds like I-Shares, which continue to profit from major gun companies like Smith and Wesson. Finally, millions of dollars in our pension portfolio are invested in large fund companies like Black Rock and Invesco, both of which are major shareholders in firearms manufacturers.

After Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, and now Uvalde, Texas, to name a few, isn’t it imperative to go back and correct this glaring oversight/error and completely pull out all pension fund monies from these companies?

New Action calls on all members to turn out on Saturday, June 11 to demonstrate our outrage over these obscene, all to frequent, episodes of gun violence that plague our nation.