I recently spent quite a bit of time trawling pension fund’s responsible investment policies to see what, if anything, they say about labour issues. The background to this is the long-expressed gripe that investors seem to spend less time looking at th…Read more…
ASOS AGM action!
This week saw some great campaigning by the GMB as part of their ongoing battle against poor working practices within ASOS, which has had a particular focus on the distribution centre in Barnsley run by XPO. The GMB had a “Catwalk of Shame” outside, an…Read more…
Sports Direct: time for change
As you may have noticed, Sports Direct had its AGM this week, and meeting was totally dominated by how the board intends to overhaul its workforce practices. The treatment of the workforce at Sports Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse has become a national s…Read more…
Sports Direct AGM on Wednesday 7th September
Next Wednesday see the AGM of Sports Direct take place. Since I last blogged about this it has become clear that a major investor revolt is underway.
The company has been publicly criticised by the Investor Forum (a first), which has called for a thor…Read more…
Sports Direct: investors now have to act or lose legitimacy
About a year ago, the group I’m involved in – Trade Union Share Owners (TUSO) – wrote out to major Sports Direct shareholders calling on them to challenge the company. Specifically we recommended that other shareholders join TUSO in signalling concerns…Read more…
The slow-moving car crash
Executive pay is like a slow-moving version of MPs’ expenses car crash, but without the degree of self-awareness shown by politicians (who do face a meaningful threat of removal from office). Each year the same headlines, each year the same justifications, each year a bit more legitimacy lost. This…Read more…
National Express Shareholders Call for Review of Workplace Rights
News of a shareholder resolution filed at National Express calling for a review of workplace rights in its US school bus business Durham. This is the second shareholder resolution backed by unions at a UK PLC this AGM. I don’t think there have been two…Read more…
Labour and infrastructure
Via twitter, I picked up this interesting piece on how Labour’s stance towards business could be made a bit more coherent. I thought I would bung up some thoughts on the points made about infrastructure, and what might be achievable here.
First up, I …Read more…
TUC Fund Manager Voting Survey 2015
The TUC’s annual voting survey – its 12th! – is out today. Two things I would flag up – the votes on the shareholder resolution at National Express (a rare case of a res explicitly on labour issues) and the votes on the bonus cap at the banks. Both ind…Read more…
Infrastructure investors need to respect workers too
A demonstration has been held outside the Frankfurt office of Macquarie today to protest its failure to resolve ongoing problems at DCT Gdansk (blogged about previously here), where it is the majority owner. Pic of the demo and press statement below……Read more…
Liam Byrne’s speech: a bit wrong, a bit sketchy, a bit interesting
Via Chris Dillow, I picked up this speech by Liam Byrne. It’s interesting to read someone who obviously disagrees with Jeremy Corbyn try and come to terms with the new centre of gravity in Labour. It’s worth noting, too, he uses the term “neo-liberalis…Read more…
Sports Direct chief exec faces criminal charge over USC collapse
Even since I blogged earlier things have got worse for Sports Direct. The Grauniad broke the news that the company’s chief executive Dave Forsey is facing a criminal charge over the USC collapse.
David Forsey, the chief executive of Sports Direct, has …Read more…
Sports Direct: you can’t say you weren’t warned
Sports Direct is back in the news, for all the wrong reasons. This week alone we have seen the following:
A BBC documentary revealed that ambulances were called to Shirebrook dozens of times in 2013 and 2014 because of employee illness. Some of t…Read more…
Workers’ Capital Conference 2015 (Day 2)
This is a little late. I have posted here and linked here on the first day of this global annual conference for trade union pension trustees and organisers that took place earlier this month.
(On my https://twitter.com/grayee account I tweeted o…Read more…
Sports Direct, unions, capitalism and client relations
Sports Direct had its annual general meeting today. Coverage of the AGM has been dominated by criticism of the company’s governance, its remuneration policy and its employment practices. A quick google shows how much criticisms of employment practices …Read more…
“It’s from workers and it should go back to workers”
Check out this post below by UNISON’s head of bargaining and Campaigns in Scotland, Dave Watson, on the first day of the Workers Capital Conference which took place yesterday.
Also this YouTube video above by the ITF.
“Workers of the world unite to …Read more…
Workers’ Capital Conference 2015
Yesterday was the first day of the 2015 Workers’ Capital Conference, which this year is being held in London and hosted by the International Transport Federation (ITF). This global conference of union pension activists was organised by the Internationa…Read more…
Trade Union Share Owners group calls for Sports Direct Chair to be voted out
Unions in the UK increasing capital strategies activity – TUSO calls time on poor corp gov and employment practices at Sports Direct. TUC release (from here) below –
The Trade Union Share Owners (TUSO) group has today called on shareholders at Sport…Read more…
Workers’ Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE …Read more…
The Walmart of the skies
Last week Michael O’Leary lost an important battle when a Danish labour ruled, if I understand it rightly, that workers at Copenhagen airport can take secondary action against Ryanair.
This is in response to the notoriously anti-union company’s latest…Read more…