Unions impugn Norwegian account over UN allotment blacklist

Two general trade unions have used a United Nations list of companies operative in Judea and Samaria to try to press a world’s largest emperor resources comment to disinvest.

The United Nations final month expelled a list of 112 companies that allegedly work in Israeli settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods.

The announcement of a list sparked Israeli fury, while a Palestinian Authority (PA) welcomed it.

The UNI Global Union and a International Trade Union Confederation wrote a corner minute this week to an ethics cabinet overseeing a outrageous Government Pension Fund of Norway, accusing it of investing in 28 of a firms listed.

TripAdvisor and Motorola Solutions, as good as Israeli banks and other companies, are among a firms on a UN list.

The letter, a duplicate of that has been seen by AFP, is believed to be a initial time a UN list has been used in such a fashion.

Christy Hoffman, General Secretary of a UNI Global Union, told AFP a UN list stirred a letter.

“We wish to make a comment change a reliable manners to anathema investment in any association that works in a settlements,” she said. “I trust we are a initial to use a UN list in this way.”

The emperor resources fund, a largest in a world, invests Norway’s oil revenues opposite a creation and has some-more than $1 trillion in assets.

It was invested in 9,200 companies during a finish of 2019, according to a annual report.

Documents on a website reliable it had millions invested in companies on a UN list, including $33 million in TripAdvisor and $257 million in Motorola.

In Israel it invested $91 million in Bank Leumi and $73 million in telecoms organisation Bezeq, among others.

The comment did not criticism on a specific allegations though pronounced it has reliable safeguards in place per all investments.

“We design companies to honour tellurian rights and take this into comment in their operations,” mouthpiece Marthe Skaar told AFP.

In 2014 a comment blacklisted dual companies concerned in construction of settlements in Jerusalem.

Omar Shakir, Israel-Palestine executive of Human Rights Watch, told AFP that a announcement of a UN database should be used by institutional investors “to insist on removing answers about a activities their income is funding.”

In Oct 2014, SodaStream announced it would tighten a bureau in Maale Adumim and pierce to southern Israel in a face of vigour from a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, that seeks to harm Israel’s economy. It had been an instance of coexistence from that both Jews and Palestinian Arabs, whose income were most aloft during SodaStream than a normal PA salary, could benefit.

Some 500 Arab employees mislaid their jobs during that time. Israel gave a remaining 74 employees accede to enter a nation and continue to work for SodaStream.