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mission & vision

OUR MISSION To promote safe respectful workplaces governed by diverse corporate boards that are free from discrimination and sexual misconduct.
OUR VISION Diverse unbiased corporate cultures where workers are safe, respected, valued and enabled to work to their fullest potential.

PRINCIPLES

Commitment to Leading Practices
Corporations must ensure a work environment free of sexual harassment and violence. Boards must support the right of employees, both individually and collectively, to safely bring forward claims of sexual harassment and violence. Company directors should publicly share due diligence processes used to respond to sexual harassment and violence complaints filed by all employees, including contingent, temporary, and subcontracted workers.
Transparent and Thorough Reporting
Companies must prioritize diversity at all levels, including the board of directors and C-suite, to take advantage of the opportunities diversity affords and to be more attuned to the risks associated with harassment, misconduct, and discrimination. Diverse boards which reflect the racial and gender composition of a company’s workforce can help to create organizational cultures that prevent sexual harassment and related risks from materializing.
Dedication to Diversity
Policies and agreements, such as collective bargaining agreements and responsible contractor policies, that protect workers’ rights provide mechanisms for risk mitigation by addressing power imbalances that often facilitate abuse, harassment, and discrimination and by providing clear mechanisms for redress when incidents occur.
Clear Processes for Accountability
The use of non-disclosure agreements and forced arbitration policies reinforce the silence that perpetuates harassment. Transparency in reporting sexual harassment and misconduct settlement costs to investors can help change corporate culture and limit the potential for significant exposure to financial and reputational risk.

goals

Public Awareness Trustees United will focus on raising public awareness about sexual misconduct in the workplace. Holding Corporate Boards Accountable TU will also engage corporate boards to hold them accountable for promoting diverse, inclusive, and safe workplaces.

activities

  • Educating fiduciaries, investors, elected officials, and the public regarding the adverse impacts of incidents of sexual misconduct, harassment, and violence in the workplace;
  • Advocating for corporate disclosure regarding incidents of sexual misconduct, harassment, and violence;
  • Facilitating corporate, investor, and legislative engagement and collaboration;
  • Promoting corporate diversity at all levels, including board diversity and C-suite equality;
  • Engaging in fundraising efforts and public awareness campaigns in support of these goals.

Board of directors

PRIYA MATHUR PRESIDENT
Past President - California Public Employees’ Retirement System
DANA DILLON SECRETARY
Past Board Chair - California State Teachers’ Retirement System
KAREN YAMAMOTO TREASURER
Board Member - California State Teachers Retirement System
Gina V. SancheZ
Trustee - Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association
Nilza R. Serrano
Commissioner - Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System
Theresa Taylor
Board Member - California Public Employees Retirement System

OUR STORY

Our story actually begins with the California Trustees Network. The Network is a group of California trustees, pension and otherwise, that gathers to discuss issues common to their funds, including labor issues. In order to understand these issues better and how it affects their funds’ investments, the Network trustees meet with labor representatives. It was immediately after the beginning of the #MeToo movement and the honoring of the Silence Breakers that labor representatives brought workers, mostly minority women, to our Trustees Network meetings. We spoke to women who were janitorial staff, housekeepers, and logistical workers. We heard their horror stories of being sexually assaulted while working. We also spoke with McDonald’s employees who were also victims of sexual misconduct while working. We heard their fear of reporting these incidents and that often when they did report, management was unresponsive, and oftentimes the workers would be blamed or even lose their jobs. Then, in September of 2018, several public pension fund trustees, who are part of the Trustees Network, attended the Principles of Responsible Investing In-Person Conference in San Francisco. Again, we heard horror stories regarding sexual misconduct and human trafficking. It was during this conference, as we were being bussed to our conference hotel from dinner, that four trustees started having a serious conversation about what we as trustees could do to further the work of our pension systems regarding sexual misconduct. The idea of Trustees United was born. During 2019, trustees from CalPERS and CalSTRS started to meet and organize. We asked trustees from other public pension systems to join our effort and pretty soon we had a founding group of over twenty trustees from CalPERS, CalSTRS, LACERS, and LACERA. We created a governing body and wrote principles to guide our efforts. Trustees United was a reality.

We continued to meet with labor representatives and workers. We publicized our effort – with articles in Bloomberg, Pensions & Investments, and Responsible Investor. We held a press conference with California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, one of our signatories, during the Denim Day demonstration at the California State Capitol. We also took our organization on the road, speaking at conferences and other trustee gatherings like Council of Institutional Investors and The Trustees Leadership Forum at Harvard. We asked other trustees, governmental officials, labor leaders and staff, as well as others to join with us as signatories in support of our Principles. In late 2019, we decided to engage with companies over sexual misconduct that we had heard about through the Trustees Network and PRI. We wrote to companies’ Board Chairs and Chief Executive Officers, asking them to meet with us to discuss the sexual misconduct that was happening in their companies and how to improve the working conditions for their employees. We would also formalize our efforts by becoming a non-profit organization, separate from our pension systems. Our 2020 campaign was to include: Amazon, McDonald’s, Alphabet (Google), Walmart, XPO, and CBRE. We wrote letters asking to meet, citing evidence of sexual misconduct and in support of labor shareholder proposals. Unfortunately, the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns hampered our efforts greatly. We heard nothing back from our targeted companies. Through 2020, we began formalizing our non-profit status and continued to meet with worker groups, including McDonald’s employees and DiscoTech – a group created by women who worked for Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet. For our 2021 campaign, we tried to engage with Amazon Alphabet, WalMart, and McDonald’s with the same results. While the Trustees United Board has continued to meeting regularly, the pandemic hampered a lot of our efforts. We end 2022 and enter into 2023, with a renewed focus on membership, education, and coalition building. We hold tight to Margaret Mead’s belief: “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world.” Please join us in making change happen!
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trustees united in the news

California Treasurer Joins Group Promoting Safe Workplaces
MAY 13, 2019 PENSIONS AND INVESTMENTS
Fiona Ma, the new California treasurer and a trustee for both CalPERS and CalSTRS, has joined a coalition of asset owner trustees and others urging those in the investment industry to adopt principles to mitigate the risk of sexual harassment and misconduct in the workplace.
Trustees United, the coalition of pension plan trustees that includes the $362.7 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System, Sacramento, and the $227.8 billion California State Teachers' Retirement System, West Sacramento, was launched in January with a set of four safe workplace principles.
"This is an important day. ... It's the 20th anniversary of ... Denim Day. Women and men all over the world are standing up for the rights of women to be free from sexual assault," Ms. Ma said at an April 24 news conference announcing her adoption of the principles.
The principles, aimed at helping investors manage risk on the issue, include urging corporate boards to support their employees' rights to bring forward claims of sexual harassment and violence without fear of retaliation as well as a principle against the use of non-disclosure agreements and forced arbitration policies that "reinforce the silence that perpetuates harassment."
She said sexual harassment and misconduct are not only distressing and sometimes devastating for workers affected but are also "bad for business."
Sexual harassment and misconduct "leave companies open to significant operational, financial and reputational risks," said Theresa Taylor, co-founder of Trustees United and a CalPERS trustee who also spoke at the news conference.
Not only did the group's founders, all female California pension fund trustees, draft and publicize the principles, but they worked to have their organizations incorporate the principles into their policies and beliefs, Ms. Taylor said.
The coalition now includes national and international trustees as well as money managers and service providers, said Dana Dillon, a co-founder of Trustees United and CalSTRS board chairwoman who also spoke at the event.
Investors launch principles addressing sexual harassment and workplace misconduct
BY: Paul Hodgson January 15, 2019 Responsible Investor
* Initiative comes in wake of #MeToo movement
Investors launch principles addressing sexual harassment and workplace misconduct
Trustees at CalPERS, CalSTRS, the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System and the Los Angeles County Employees’ Retirement Association, which together have combined assets of more than $635bn (€555bn), have come together to create the Trustees United Principles.
The principles seek to “ensure portfolio companies are working toward providing workplace cultures and environments that are safe, free of sexual harassment, violence and misconduct”. They focus on human capital management strategies that should help reduce future risks in light of their need for long-term value creation.
While the website, Trustees United, cites the bankruptcy of the Weinstein Company and the $2 billion loss in value at Wynn Resorts following sexual assault allegations against executives there, rather it focuses on “opportunities to create long-term value that have been missed” because companies have allowed sexual harassment and misconduct to occur that has damaged corporate culture.
This is a less headline-grabbing but actually more significant potential value loss. In an interview with RI, Outgoing CalPERS Board President Priya Mathur said: “Major scandals, settlement costs, value loss is important, but there are also other relevant issues for us to think about. For example, a toxic corporate culture is not conducive to productivity.
“Those subject to sexual harassment and misconduct in the workplace are less likely to be productive, their morale will be lower, their ability to be engaged with and represent the company is likely to be hampered. Plus, you see increased absenteeism, and impacts on retention and recruitment. And from the consumer standpoint, a significant scandal can have an important impact on brand loyalty. We have to care about this as investors.”
“Long-term value creation requires companies to fully consider the business risks and opportunities they may face and to take action to manage both,” says the website. The trustees recognise that the wave of sexual harassment and misconduct reports open companies up to “significant operational, financial and reputational risks”. This has forced a focus on surrounding issues as well, such as gender, racial and ethnic diversity. The trustees have been asking for transparency surrounding how portfolio companies are mitigating these risks.
In the press release, Mathur said: “This is a joint assertion that trustees and investors alike have a stake in engaging companies to promote policies that reduce incidents of sexual harassment, violence and misconduct and provide safe, supportive, and productive workplaces.”
“We have to care about this as investors.” Mathur also said that sexual harassment and misconduct was a common topic of discussion at the PRI in Person conference in San Francisco in September and was one of the most engaging sessions. And back in August, Bloomberg reported, she said, that investors were including clawback clauses in their M&A documents so that if a sexual harassment incident occurred that damaged the value of an acquired company they could recoup some of that loss.
“We are trustees who talk to each other a lot,” she added, “and the public pension world is our world, so those are the first folks that we are reaching out to, but I have spoken to others who have also integrated principles like this into their engagement policies. I think we will see family offices, endowments, foundations, as they seek to align their investment strategies with their own missions.”
The trustees involved in the principles are intent on using corporate governance engagement strategies addressing these issues, including: general staff, C-Suite leadership and the composition of their boards of directors.
The principles are available at the Trustees United website. They complement principles at each of the signatory organisations. The website invites other trustees to submit their support for the principles by filling in an online form.
California Pension Trustees Call for Disclosures of #MeToo Costs
By Emily Chasan and John GittelsohnJanuary 14, 2019, 7:21 AM PST Bloomberg
* New group calls on trustees around the world to do the same * Data needed on corporate costs, says Priya Mathur of Calpers A group of trustees from some of America’s biggest public pensions are calling on companies to detail costs related to sexual harassment and any measures they’re taking to address the problem. “We don’t see how it could possibly be accretive to corporate value to have a culture that allows for sexual harassment in the workplace,” said Priya Mathur, the departing president of the $345 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest U.S. pension fund. Companies are losing customers, paying settlements and higher insurance costs and being distracted “from their core strategies because they have to deal with this.” Together with Sharon Hendricks, the board vice chair of the $219 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System, Mathur formed Trustees United, a group of 13 of the state’s female pension fund trustees seeking to improve corporate disclosures on sexual harassment, violence and misconduct. They want companies to publicly declare how they investigate harassment complaints, disclose settlement costs to investors, and publish information about policies to protect workers and promote diversity. ‘Long-Term Value’ “Without sufficient data, we really don’t know what companies are paying,” Mathur said in an interview. The first woman to chair the biggest U.S. pension fund, Mathur will end her tenure this week. “We can all list ways in which we think this is costly to companies and investors, but for us to do analysis and really identify which companies are developing a culture that is supportive of productivity and long-term value creation, we need more data.” California has been a leader in promoting diversity and taking action against harassment. As of 2019, new laws prohibit non-disclosure agreements in settlements of sexual harassment, assault or discrimination; require employee harassment training; and mandate that boards of publicly traded companies based in the state have at least one female director. The new group, which also includes trustees from the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System and the Los Angeles County Employees’ Retirement Association, is asking their colleagues and pension fund trustees around the world -- male and female -- to sign on to its principles. Joining Forces The idea for the group started on a bus ride following a trustees’ network meeting last March on investment risks from sexual harassment. Mathur, Hendricks, Calstrs board chair Dana Dillon and Calpers board member Theresa Taylor decided they needed to join forces. Over the course of the year, both pension boards adopted language in their investment policies aimed at pressing y6toiu1companies to disclose more about harassment. Similar language was proposed at a Lacers board meeting last week. “I don’t think we’re alone in tackling these issues, but we’re at the top of the investment chain so to speak, and we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to take this on,” Mathur said. “There’s clearly an inflection point in our society where we’re saying we’re no longer going to tolerate this behavior, and that’s an important signal to investors.”
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