Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–March 30, 2012. Next week, on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s tragic assassination, labor and civil rights groups will be in Germany at the Daimler shareholder meeting calling on the company to stand for repeal of Alabama’s racist law, HB56.Daimler has remained silent even though it is one of the largest employers in Alabama, and is a founding signatory of the U.N. Global Compact, which calls on corporations to ensure “they are not complicit in human rights abuses” where they do business.
The delegation will include Fred Redmond, International Vice President for the United Steelworkers and member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, Renata Soto, National Council of LaRaza board member and Executive Director of Conexión Américas and Patty Kupfer, Managing Director for America’s Voice.
Daimler is headquartered in Germany and manufactures Mercedes-Benz cars in Alabama. Alabama recently passed HB56 a harsh anti-immigrant law that legitimizes racial profiling and targets racial minorities or anyone who looks or sounds foreign. Businesses who operate in Alabama are not exempt from the law’s harsh consequences as Daimler learned in November when one of its German executives was arrested and jailed near its Tuscaloosa plant for not carrying the proper “papers,” even though he was in the United States legally and in the course of conducting business.
Daimler has billed itself as a leader on corporate social responsibility and as a founding signer of the United Nations Global Compact, has pledged to uphold universal human rights.
While in Germany the delegation will call on Daimler to publicly oppose the Alabama law and all laws that flow from the flawed model that is the basis of HB56. They will urge Daimler to stand on the right side of history and do what is morally right.
Source: aflcio.org
