Crown reported a $29 million loss for 1998, and earlier this year hired an investment bank to sell or fundamentally restructure the company. Independent analysts have attributed the company's problems, including substantial losses in stock value, to the multi-faceted union campaign.

"What you have is a company that continues to exist without making money," said Ed Rothstein, campaign coordinator in Baltimore where the company is headquartered. "How often do you see the business weeklies, major daily newspapers and the trade press carrying our argument that a company is grossly mismanaged?"

PACE Local 2-1553 member James Broaddus said new efforts to support the boycott in Virginia and North Carolina are making a big impact. "We are doing very well in Richmond with regular picketing at the stations," said Broaddus, who coordinates campaign efforts out of the PACE Region Four office. "Our outreach this month to the Virginia Baptist association and to college students have been particularly promising."

With the possibility of a sale, PACE has made special efforts to demonstrate to shareholders how the company's value has been diminished by its war against workers. Sanford Lewis, a leading national expert on corporate accountability and environmental issues, prepared a detailed report alleging numerous violations of Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure rules by Crown.

On Crown's "hidden ledger sheet," according to the report, are over $70 million in undisclosed costs and risks from the boycott, environmental problems that could total over $15 million, and from the potential loss of $23 million in federal contracts due to discrimination and civil rights problems.

"We believe these omissions are serious violations of government disclosure rules and thereby compromise the ability of shareholders to make informed investment decisions," said PACE Special Projects Director Joe Drexler. Drexler said a formal complaint to the SEC is likely as a result of the report and other communication to major Crown shareholders.

Religious community support for Crown workers has become more visible since the largest African-American denomination, the National Baptist Convention, endorsed the boycott in February. A group of prominent Catholics, including the bishops of Austin Texas, New Orleans, Richmond and Detroit, have pressured Crown board member Father Harold Ridley to meet over the issues. Ridley, who is president of Loyola College, has also had to answer to vigorous lobbying by a Loyola student organization supporting the boycott.

Coupled with the Crown annual meeting, 375 religious leaders signed an appeal for justice and the end of the lockout. The appeal was published as an open letter to CEO Henry Rosenberg in issues of Baltimore's major business journal The Daily Record.

The outreach to predominantly-Black denominations has direct value to the boycott effort in addition to the moral dimension. Many of Crown's Zippy Mart and Fast Fare gas stations and convenience stores are located in minority communities.

Broaddus and other campaign organizers are working feverishly to line-up groups willing to "adopt- a-station," targeting Crown outlets for regular picketing and handbilling. Current efforts are aimed at urban areas of Northern Virginia, Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C., Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta in addition to Richmond and Baltimore.

"We are very pleased at the groundswell of religious community support at this critical time in the Crown campaign," Drexler said, giving particular credit to AFL-CIO's Rev. James Orange for his assistance. "We look at the many diverse parties that are helping build the boycott, and it gives us a lot of hope."

The PACESetter, vol.1 no.4, June 1999