All the union news that's fit to blog...
Last week the NAPF launched a discussion document to address what it says is a “workforce-sized hole” in corporate reporting. In the introduction to the paper the NAPF says:
within the Environmental, Social and Governance acronym the understanding and…Read more…
Just a quick update, as I noted in a previous post Fidelity says it has “deliberately steered away from” addressing the question of scale/size/amount (or as they say “quantum”) of executive pay.
This hasn’t always been their view. It turns out that Fi…Read more…
I’ve blogged previously about Caledonia Investments continuing to give the company’s money to the Conservative Party, this time without shareholder approval. I’ve just spotted that actually they have done it twice in the past few months, first in Eastl…Read more…
A quick plug for the BlackRock/CERES report on shareholder engagement on ESG issues which is available here. There look to be quite a few interesting pieces in there from people who know what they are talking about.
I’m taking my little hobby horse ou…Read more…
There’s a good summary of what is going on in the Shareholder Rights Directive here. Arguably the most significant part of it is below –
Shareholders do not own corporationsThe directive will explicitly acknowledge that shareholders do not own corporat…Read more…
There’s a very telling quote early on in this piece by Jill Treanor on Fidelity’s views on exec pay.
“If you approach executive pay from the point of quantum, you are setting yourself up to fail,” he said.I think this encapsulates why there will continue to be controversy around exec pay. A lot of…Read more…
About six months ago I blogged about a PRI report on policy, and the limited mentions of labour issues compared to governance and environmental issues. My belief was and is that the RI community pays significantly less attention to labour issues than o…Read more…
A quick plug for the excellent report by the High Pay Centre on performance-related pay, No Routine Riches. This is the outcome of a year-long project looking at performance pay, and how it can be reformed.
If you read the report you’ll get a sense of…Read more…
As I’ve blogged previously, the new version of the UK Corporate Governance Code requires companies to make a statement in response to large votes against them. This was introduced due to concerns that companies were treating near misses on exec pay vot…Read more…
One of the things some people won’t have noticed in the aftermath of the election is a very significant shareholder revolt at National Express over labour rights at its AGM last week.
A group of shareholders including LAPFF members had filed a resolut…Read more…
It’s a lot worse than I thought.
I think the Labour result leaves us in a real mess. The lack of progress in England will strengthen the argument that Labour was pulling too far to the Left. I don’t agree, but that is the claim that will be made. In c…Read more…
The Right of the Labour Party has had it in for Ed Miliband since the day he was elected. Because their criticism of him encompasses some things a lot of people agree with, like his failure to connect with the public, it can seem like a ‘pragmatic’ vie…Read more…
Big news tonight – the FT has reported that the major proxy voting adviser ISS has recommended that shareholders vote FOR Resolution 22 at the National Express AGM next week. PIRC has also recommended a vote in favour.
Resolution 22 calls on the board…Read more…
I just noticed something rather surprising. There are five political parties that make reference to enhancing the role of employees in corporate governance in their manifestos.
I have done Labour already, so here are the rest.
Lib Dems (page 137 in fu…Read more…
In less than two weeks, the day before the election, National Express has its annual meeting. Resolution 22 on the agenda is a shareholder proposal drafted and filed by three local authority pension funds that are members of the Local Authority Pension…Read more…
OK, from Labour’s workplace manifesto, here’s the full text of the corporate governance proposals.
Short-termist pressure in the UK can undermine good workplace relations and weakens incentives to make the long-term investments in training, technolog…Read more…
The Labour Party will require employee representation on remuneration committees if they form the next government. It’s there, in the manifesto, on page 21. Despite some whispers that this policy might be dropped, because business lobbyists don’t …Read more…
When the Telegraph ran a Tory-supporting letter from a group of business people this caused an interesting split amongst Labour supporters. Some saw the letter as very damaging and further evidence that the party had lost much of the credibility built …Read more…
Duncan O’Leary from Demos has a very interesting blog here digging into some polling of business leaders views on whether a Conservative / Labour government would be good / bad for various stakeholders in big business (investors, employees and customer…Read more…
A quick plug for the annual proxy vote survey undertaken by SHARE plus the Columbia Institute and Fonds de Solidarite FTQ. This is one of several survey undertaken by labour-oriented groups worldwide to assist trustees in holding asset managers a…Read more…