As shareholders of JBS (JBS N.V.), AJL Foundation has a responsibility to address material risks that affect both company performance and community well-being. Labor practices are one of those risks. Our presence on the picket line, if JBS workers strike, reflects a core principle of responsible ownership: companies that treat workers fairly are stronger, more resilient, and more profitable over time.

As shareholders in JBS, the multinational beef producer headquartered in Greeley, Colorado, the AJL Foundation’s presence on the picket line with striking workers isn’t a symbolic gesture — it’s a deeply grounded expression of our fiduciary duty, mission alignment, and values-driven investment philosophy.

Workers’ Conditions Are a Material Business Issue

Unionized workers at the JBS Greeley plant recently voted overwhelmingly (roughly 99%) to authorize a strike in response to ongoing unfair labor practices, unsafe working conditions, and stalled contract negotiations that workers and the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 7 describe as violations of labor law.

This isn’t a peripheral issue. Workforce stability, safety, and fair compensation are directly tied to productivity, operational risk, turnover costs, regulatory exposure, reputational harm, and long-term earnings — all factors that affect a company’s financial performance and risk profile.

From a fiduciary standpoint, ignoring such risks as shareholders is neither prudent nor aligned with the long-term stewardship our Investment Policy Statement demands. The Foundation’s IPS explicitly states that all assets should be held in fiduciary capacity to accomplish the mission, integrating both financial and impact objectives, including avoiding harm and benefitting stakeholders, into portfolio oversight.

Our Mission Integrates Financial, Social, and Community Outcomes

The AJL Foundation’s strategic plan (2023–2028) makes clear that our mission, to invest in people, programs, and movements that benefit Colorado’s youth and families, extends beyond grantmaking into how we deploy capital, influence systems, and steward resources.

Aligned with that mission, AJL’s impact investing philosophy holds positive social impact and financial return as equally weighted objectives across our entire portfolio. Our Investment Policy Statement reaffirms that investing should pursue long-term total return while evaluating opportunities that avoid harm, benefit stakeholders, and contribute to solutions.

In this moment, that means recognizing that worker wellbeing is not separate from shareholder value. Companies that systematically undervalue safety and fair compensation incur tangible and material risks — from workplace accidents to labor disruptions, legal exposure, and reputational damage — that can erode investor returns over time.

Shareholder Engagement Is a Formal Tool for Accountability

As the AJL Foundation has articulated in our work with fellow impact investors, shareholder engagement is not secondary to activism, it is a responsible form of ownership. Engagement is how investors bring community concerns into corporate governance and risk oversight, creating accountability where regulation alone falls short.

Shareholder engagement means asking tough questions of leadership, urging better policies and practices, and, when necessary, elevating concerns publicly to protect long-term value. Showing up with workers underscores that engagement isn’t abstract, it’s grounded in the real lives and labor that make corporate success possible.

Standing With Workers Is Standing for Community Resilience

JBS isn’t just another stock in the portfolio, it’s a major employer in Northern Colorado. Disruptions in labor relations ripple into the community’s economic stability, local families’ wellbeing, and broader regional growth.

AJL’s mission centers on communities thriving, not just financial metrics. Standing with workers reflects an understanding that community wellbeing and corporate health are linked. Healthy, fairly compensated workforces build resilient local economies and stronger long-term companies.

Fiduciary Duty Includes Managing Impact Risk, Not Avoiding It

Critically, fiduciary duty doesn’t mean avoiding all controversy. It means managing risks that affect long-term value and mission success. AJL’s Investment Policy doesn’t place financial returns in isolation, it integrates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk evaluation as part of prudent stewardship.

Worker treatment is one of those ESG factors with measurable implications; from safety records to low turnover and higher productivity. Employers who neglect labor issues expose shareholders to operational and governance risk. Conversely, companies that proactively address labor concerns typically reduce risk and build stronger, more sustainable value over time.

Fiduciary Duty in an Interconnected Economy

AJL’s approach to investing is systems-level by design. When a company suppresses wages, compromises safety, or resists fair labor standards, those costs do not disappear — they are externalized. They show up in strained public health systems, increased reliance on taxpayer-funded services, higher turnover across industries, and greater demand on philanthropy to stabilize families in crisis — depressing economic growth in ways that jeopardize the long-term stability of diversified investor portfolios like that of our foundation. 

In other words, weak labor practices shift costs from corporate balance sheets onto communities, governments, and mission-driven institutions like ours. As fiduciaries stewarding capital for long-term impact and return, we cannot ignore systemic cost-shifting that distorts markets and undermines community resilience. Addressing these dynamics is not political, it is prudent risk management and responsible ownership in an interconnected economy.

Ownership Is Responsibility

For AJL Foundation, being on the picket line with JBS workers isn’t about taking sides in a dispute. It’s about fulfilling our responsibility as owners to steward assets in ways that reflect both financial prudence and our mission to support thriving families and communities.

In this moment, standing with workers is not only mission-aligned and ethical — it’s fiduciary. It’s how we honor our commitment to invest not just for returns, but for an economy and society in which those returns are sustainable, equitable, and shared.