Holy Land Principles Comes to Pepsi

WASHINGTON, April 19, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The global food and beverage company, PepsiCo — with 274,000 employees worldwide— will be faced with a fair employment Resolution (No. 7) at its Annual Shareholders Meeting in New Bern, North Carolina, on May 4.

The Resolution is on the Holy Land Principles— a corporate code of conduct for American companies doing business in Israel-Palestine. The Principles are based on the very effective Mac Bride Principles for Northern Ireland.

The Holy Land Principles are pro-Jewish, pro-Palestinian and pro-company. The Principles do not call for quotas, reverse discrimination, divestment, disinvestment or boycotts. The Principles do not take any position on solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The Principles do not try to tell the Palestinians or the Israelis what to do. The Holy Land Principles only try to get Pepsi and the other 544 companies doing business in Palestine-Israel to sign the Holy Land Principles.

Last year, three American companies — Corning, GE and Intel— tried to get the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) to exclude the Holy Land Principles resolution from their 2015 Proxy Materials. However, the SEC ruled in favor of the Holy Land Principles.

The SEC is a federal agency of the United States Government. One of the SEC's main responsibilities is to protect investors. And the fact that the SEC has ruled three times in favor of the Holy Land Principles is proof positive that the Holy Land Principles are intrinsically valid, eminently reasonable and inherently fair.

Fr. Sean Mc Manus—President of the Washington-based Holy Land Principles and Irish National Caucus — said: "Pepsi in its statement against our Resolution rather weakly argues that 'implementing  a unique policy for a specific geographical area would neither be necessary nor useful.' Well, with all due respect, I think that's a bit like responding to the urgent call 'Black Lives Matter' by saying all lives matter. People see through that dodge, that evasion, that dissembling."

Fr. Mc Manus explained: "American companies doing business in Northern Ireland initially tried such evasive tactics, including Pepsi. But eventually they saw the light. Eventually 116 companies signed the Mac Bride Principles— including, to its credit, Pepsi. So why would Pepsi, or any American company, now balk at signing the Holy Land Principles?

Fr. Mc Manus continued: "Isn't it truly remarkable that until we launched the Holy Land Principles, on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2012, this issue had never been raised before in the corporate boardrooms. How can it be explained, given the fact that SRI groups and faith-based organizations were filing a great many Resolutions on  every conceivable issue? One cannot ask American companies doing business in the Holy Land a more relevant, pressing or existential question than one about their fair employment practices. Our campaign — like our Mac Bride Principles campaign — will prevail in the end because there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
We respectfully ask Pepsi investors to vote for the Holy Land Principles resolution."

Fr. Sean Mc Manus
President
Holy Land Principles,Inc.
P.O. BOX 15128
Capitol Hill
Washington, DC 20003-0849
Tel. 202-488-0107
Fax. 202-488-7537
[email protected]

SOURCE Holy Land Principles