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Union-Backed Shareholder Vote Tells DuPont to End Toxic Poison |
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In a move strongly supported by workers, shareholders at E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. sent a resounding message that the company is not moving quickly enough to end the use of a toxic chemical that is found in hundreds of commonly used products.
Some 27.3 percent of investors voted at the company’s annual meeting April 26 in Wilmington, Del., to ask management to report on options to accelerate the company’s phaseout of the use of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The chemical is used in production of Teflon® cookware and grease and stain repellent coatings for carpets, textiles and fast-food wrappers. It lingers in the environment and is linked to potential health effects such as cancer, liver damage and birth defects.
USW International Union (USW) members joined with environmentalists and some 100 residents from communities whose water is contaminated by PFOA releases from DuPont plants outside the meeting to demand that the company be held accountable for its pollution.
“PFOA is found in almost every American’s blood and in our consumer items,” says Pam Carter, who lives near DuPont’s Fayetteville, N.C., plant. “It seems almost every month PFOA is found to have contaminated another community’s water.” The Fayetteville plant is the only place where PFOA is manufactured in the United States.
“Whenever resolutions on environmental or toxic chemical issues are filed, if they get more than 10 percent of the vote, we believe it sends a message to management that shareholders are growing very concerned,” says Sanford Lewis of DuPont Shareholders for Fair Value, a coalition formed by the USW to educate and advocate on the issues relative to PFOA. “By contrast, a vote of this magnitude is so big that it can’t be ignored. We hope management takes action based on this resounding show of concern.”
The chemical was found in groundwater near Fayetteville and in a personal drinking well. The average levels of PFOA in the blood of tested employees in 2005 were nearly 100 times higher than the average level in the general population.
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