LGPS Forum: Opportunity to participate in transnational Labour Rights Investor Network

 

(UNISON are supporting their members who are pension trustees/activists to join)

The Global Union’s Committee on Workers' Capital (CWC) is a network of pension trustees and staff dedicated to ensuring that employee retirement assets are invested responsibly. The CWC is initiating the Labor Rights Investor Network, a new investor education and exchange network that will offer resources and actionable information to help investors better engage portfolio companies on labor rights issues, including freedom of association, collective bargaining, and health & safety . We encourage you to follow the registration link below and join us to hear more about this exciting new initiative.

REGISTER HERE

Mikail Husain (he/him)

ESG Analyst | SOC Investment Group 

"Investors have three reasons to advance their stewardship of labour rights. First, labour rights are human rights and investors have responsibilities to respect these rights in their investment and stewardship decisions. Second, respect for labour rights enables investors to mitigate systemic and company-specific risks. And third, freedom of association and collective bargaining, along with other worker rights such as the right to a safe and healthy workplace, can improve corporate performance.

The Labour Rights Investors Network will provide investors with the actionable information they need to engage on labour issues, uphold their responsibilities to respect human rights, mitigate workplace risks, and drive stronger returns. An initiative of the Global Unions’ Committee on Workers’ Capital (CWC), the Network will offer events and resources, including regular opportunities for education and exchange on issues such as identifying labour risks, the impact of different legal contexts, and how stewardship can improve transparency and performance on freedom of association and collective bargaining. The Network will provide written resources, bring workers to share their experiences, and connect investors to experts in such areas as international labour standards, country-specific labour laws, and workplace health and safety.

Our first webinar will provide a selection of the types of content the Network will offer. You will hear from workers who have experienced labour risks firsthand, learn about one company’s approach to mitigating that risk, hear from an investor on why freedom of association is an important topic for stewardship, and have a chance to ask an international labour rights expert questions. We will present an overview of the network and what you can expect from joining.

We are hosting two sessions of this webinar and invite you to register for the session that best fits your time zone and schedule as both events will follow the same agenda. You are invited to join one of the following two options:

• Option 1 (Australia/North America): Wednesday November 15th at 3pm Eastern Standard Time / 12pm Pacific Time/ 9pm CEST | Thursday November 16th at 7:00am Australian Eastern Daylight Time. REGISTER HERE 
• Option 2 (Europe/North America): Monday November 20th at 3pm Central European Time / 9am Eastern Standard Time/ 6am Pacific Time. REGISTER HERE

Vote for Worker Board Members at Walmart AGM for better Governance and to tackle Covid-19 pandemic

Today I took part as a pension trustee in a online seminar with USA Walmart workers and their trade union, about governance and the abysmal response of the retail giant Walmart to the Covid-19 emergency.

Their workers spoke about the dangerously confused and fragmented response by management, which meant that workers and customers were put at unnecessary risk with little or no PPE provided, inadequate or non existent measures to social distance nor proper deep cleaning of stores.

It sounded like a complete and utter "f**k up", made worse by a woeful provision of sick pay for staff if they become ill and inadequate (at best) company medical insurance.

Next week there is the Walmart shareholders Annual General Meeting and there is a resolution calling for some of the company board members to be elected by its own staff.

If you look at what has happened with the very low levels of Covid-19 in Germany, which has had worker board members as a norm for decades, maybe this shows how companies have better governance and are more safely run if they have worker reps on their actual board.

I made the point at the seminar that as a long term investor I don't want for us to invest in a company that treats its staff badly and puts them and its customers at risk in a pandemic. It is not only morally (and legally) wrong but a bad decision to invest in a company that is so poorly run in an emergency that it allows its staff and customers to be put at deadly risk!

The AGM is next week and the motion for elected worker reps is proposal 7. Please contact your Pension or fund managers and if they own stock on your behalf in Walmart let them know your views. 

UNISON LGPS Seminar - Tuesday 11th of December 2018 - 10.30am to 4.30pm

The union’s Capital Stewardship Programme is holding our annual seminar for all LGPS Board members, branches and activists on the governance and economics of the LGPS. There are major reforms being implemented England, Wales and Scotland and these will be discussed across

National Seminar: Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)

Tuesday 11th of December 2018 - 10.30am to 4.30pm

UNISON Centre – 130 Euston Road, London

The union’s Capital Stewardship Programme is holding our annual seminar for all LGPS Board members, branches and activists on the governance and economics of the LGPS. There are major reforms being implemented England, Wales and Scotland and these will be discussed across

The union will be launching a major training programme for members and activists to get more involved in the responsible investment policies of their funds. Issues such as Climate Change, Worker Rights, Executive Pay, Workers on Company Boards, and Living Wage for the companies your fund invests in. Come and find out about this new initiative.

Outside speakers have been invited from Labour’s Shadow LGPS Minister, the LGA, and ShareAction

Preliminary agenda
A future Labour government and the LGPS
The Scheme Advisory Boards – progress
Cost control in the LGPS – preparing for the 2019 valuations
What’s happened to the LGPS Asset Pools
Building a member led responsible investor campaign in the LGPS

Please email your unison contact for an application form.

Best wishes

Colin Meech, National Officer, Capital Stewardship Programme

UNISON Capital Stewards Website

I have just signed into the new UNISON website for Capital Stewards and will start posting some links and articiles over the next few days. The site is currently only for UNISON activists and is password protected. If you are a UNISON pension trustee or Local Government Pension scheme Committee or Board member, you can apply for access via your UNISON regional contact.

This is the introduciton on the site "Capital Stewards has been designed as a knowledge and campaigning unit for trade union activists. Here you will find materials, films and news that will help you understand the world of pension funds, investing and broader economic ideas. Around the world pension funds and their representatives are making investments and engaging on a wide range of issues from worker's rights and pay to the environment".

The Youtube video "its our Money - the Power of Pension Funds" explains more about capital stewardship.

Hat tip Mr Meech

Why Menzies Aviation is a health & safety investment nightmare: UNISON London Pension Network & SEIU

The group picture is from last Tuesday's lunchtime network meeting of London UNISON pension Member Nominated Representatives and Trustees.  I chair the network which has met every 3 months for the past 10 years or so. It is an opportunity for us to meet up and discuss pension and investment issues, training and Capital Stewardship. The pension world (and in particular the Local Government Pension Scheme) is undergoing massive changes and in the last year the network has been very active. 

Each meeting we try to have interesting guest speakers. This time we had invited Heather Szerlag and Wendy Weiner (centre of photo) from the 2 million strong SEIU which is a sister public service union to UNISON which organises in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Wendy and Heather briefed us on the investment and reputational risk that our pension funds face from investing in the British listed company Menzies. In the UK the company is best known for its retail newsagent chain but in the United States it owns Menzies Aviation which is a major international provider of services to airports.  

Many of these services are so called heavy manual or "below the wings"jobs. Which are hidden from public view and often dangerous. Menzies has an appalling health and safety record in the United States. Four Menzies workers have been killed in recent years and the company has had numerous fines and safety violations filed against it by the regulator including a "serious wilful risk" citation. Their record on safety is far worse than its competitors.

Not only is there a reputational risk to pension funds from its investments in Menzies there is also a clear financial risk since Menzies record is so bad it is in danger of losing its licence to operate at US airports. Top international carriers are also worried at the reputational risk of being associated with Menzies.

Menzies Aviation refuses to recognise trade unions which I think is cause and effect of its dangerous workplace practises. If they treat their workers in such a way I shudder at the thought of how they take passenger and aircrew safety. In the UK "Safety studies show that workers are twice as likely to be injured in a non-unionised workplace. This is because in unionised workplaces, employers are required to work with union-appointed safety reps and set up safety committees".

In order to protect its members SEIU is trying to highlight the issue and risk to investors. It was agreed for us to take this matter up with our investment managers and advisers.

I was very disappointed to learn that the biggest single investor in Menzies, the fund manager Schroders, refuses to meet or even talk to the SEIU? Schroders manage a 16.18% holding on behalf of investors and you would have thought that they would want to find out more about such significant  risks and I think they are being irresponsible not to do so.

After the week that was - UNISON Conference #uNDC14

On Friday afternoon after the close of the 2014 UNISON NDC conference at Brighton, I went to nearby Worthing for the weekend to recover.

On Saturday I went for 10.5 mile walk across ancient iron age forts in the South Downs. The weather was simply glorious, very warm with blue skies but there was a nice cooling breeze.

You could see Brighton in the far distance. I had spent the last 4 days from 9am to 6pm in what is fundamentally, a very large shed with up to 2500 other people. Walking outdoors in shorts, sandals and tee-shirt in beautiful countryside was a real treat. It was strange to start the day without a standing orders committee report mind!

It had been a very successful conference and we are now clearly taking the fight over low pay to the government. We were I think on the whole united and "in UNISON". Bizarrely one of the few disputes in the conference hall originated in the squabbling and infighting following the demise of the extremist so called "United left" group.

While I may wish the ultra left trotskyist "permanent revolutionaries" will stop fibbing their manta at the end of every speech that "their union money is going to the Labour Party" (the truth is that it is only from members who choose to pay the Labour Link levy), I enjoy their distinctive sleep inducing "house style" of speaking, which in the absence of hard liquor makes listening to them bearable.

While none of the motions that I was due to speak on behalf of the NEC came up high enough in the agenda, I did enjoy listening to the debates and the fringes. I was able to help out my branch delegation with speech writing and chaired the Capital Stewardship fringe.

A highlight of conference for me was the election by the NEC of Eric Roberts (London Ambulance Service branch secretary and Health NEC) as a new UNISON Vice President. Eric is a London comrade and top trade unionist. I look forward to him being President of the union in 2016.

I will post further reports on Conference as and when I write them up. 

Roll on UNISON Conference 2015 in Glasgow.

Capital Stewardship Fringe - introduction #uNDC14

This is introduction to the fringe I chaired on Wednesday evening.

"Welcome. My name is John Gray I am branch secretary of Greater London region Housing Association branch and an NEC member for Community. I have also been a member of the Local Government Pension Fund (LGPS) since 1993 and since 1996 I have been an observer then a member nominated representative (MNR) on my scheme investment panel and pension committee.

On my right is a person who needs no real introduction, Colin Meech, UNISON national officer for Capital Stewardship and LGPS governance specialist.

The agenda for today’s meeting is a few words from me following by an update by Colin on the latest developments on the governance of the LGPS.

I have been paying around 6% of my wages into my Pension for over 20 years. My employers have been paying the equivalent of about 14% of my wages, my deferred pay for the same period.

To be clear. My pension fund is my own money. Yet when I first became a pension rep on my scheme and began asking what was happening with my money, the 20% of my pay that I and my fellow union members had been paying into the fund, I remember being told by one Councillor on its pension panel that I was "an observer, and observers should be observe and not speak".

Now, as you can imagine I gave that Councillor the benefit of my views on my right to speak and raise questions about my money at this and any other future meeting. To be fair that was the last time that happened to me but that attempt to put me in my place reminded me that essentially, we were powerless in the LGPS, especially compared to private sector member nominated representatives who had the legal right to be full members of pension boards with voting rights.

To be frank I was lucky in my scheme that we were even “allowed” to attend the pension committee. Some UNISON members were told by Chairs that "over their dead body would they have a union rep at their meeting”. Note the view that this is “their” meeting. Of course some Funds had no pension committee at all, and the fund was run by a Chief Officer alone. There have also been well run funds that welcome MNRs.

This is why I am so pleased thanks largely to UNISON and our national officers such as Colin that we now have some real rights and responsibilities to govern our own money. Colin will brief you on the next steps but he will also warn you about the inevitable resistance by vested interests to the democratisation and efficient running of our funds. The usual suspects still want things to remain the same and treat us as 2nd class trustees.

Colin will also point us in the right direction but it is up to all of us to do our bit and make sure that we stop the financial services industry ripping off our pension funds and making sure that we invest our money in long term, sustainable, well managed investments that don’t for example employ child labour, doesn't kill its workers, bride public officials or destroys the environment.

Not only do we not want our money used in this way but also it is our belief that this will make more money for our fund than short term speculation. 

I have now witted on enough and will pass you over to Mr Meech. Q&A afterwards. We will finish at 6.15pm".

(I will post a report on Colin's presentation next)

UNISON NDC14 - LGPS Members "time to govern your own money" fringe

Next week is the UNISON National Delegate Conference (NDC). On Wednesday 18 June 2014 at 5.15pm in Syndicate room 2, Brighton Centre, there will be a UNISON Capital Stewardship fringe.

This conference fringe is called  "Local Government Pension Scheme - time to govern your own money".

A certain UNISON NEC member and LGPS rep called John Gray will Chair/Speak at the meeting. The UNISON National officer for Capital Stewardship, Mr Meech, will be there and one "other" speaker.

"In April 2015 scheme members will start to make key decisions about how and where their money is invested. UNISON has won a historic concession from the Coalition government.

50% of seats on the new LGPS boards will be made available to trade union scheme members.

The fringe meeting will discuss and debate the reforms to LGPS governance, what it means for the union and for union members who want to become pension fund reps, to discuss the organising programme to support this work.

The LGPS has 100 pension funds with a collective asset value of £160bn."

Demand the Living Wage

I received today the email below from Mr Meech at UNISON capital stewardship programme and have just spent a happy 10 minutes emailing via the ShareAction website my 4 difference pension funds ( 2 private deferred and 2 active LGPS).


This week is Living Wage Week and tomorrow I will also post on Ed Miliband's speech this morning on the cost of living crisis in this country.

"Dear colleagues

UNISON has been at the forefront of the campaign for Living Wages since it started over ten years ago.

To mark 2013’s Living Wage Week, UNISON has joined with ShareAction (a campaigning charity that works closely with the union) to use the power of our members’ pension funds to support Living Wages.

The Local Government pension funds, and other UNISON members funds, hold £ billions worth of shares in the UK’s biggest companies – and with their shareholder power, they can demand that companies pay people a salary they can live on. This investor power comes from members’ money, which gives us the right to call on those funds to do the right thing.

Add your voice to the thousands of people demanding a Living Wage this week? Click below to ask your pension fund to push for the Living Wage: http://action.shareaction.org/Living-Wage/

We know this kind of tactic works. When UNISON and ShareAction (then called FairPensions) launched the JustPay! campaign for Living Wages two years ago, just 3 of the biggest 100 companies in Britain paid their employees a Living Wage. Due to the pressure we’ve put on them together, 10 more of these corporate giants have now signed up.

With the cost of living rising and many more working families struggling, this issue has never been more important: getting the biggest companies in Britain to pay the Living Wage will help tackle poverty in the UK head on.

Ask your pension fund to support Living Wages: http://action.shareaction.org/Living-Wage/

UNISON staff pension fund has committed its shares in the FTSE 100 to help this campaign.

Please contact me for further information".

Best wishes

Colin Meech, National Officer
Capital Stewardship Programme
Web site: www.capitalstewards.org
Twitter: UNISON Capital @workercapital

#Lab13 Pensions and Capital Stewardship

This is the speech I made on Monday afternoon

Conference, now for something a little different. For most of us the world of pensions and investments is baffling and obscure. We pay our money in – we hope it’s there when we need it in our retirement.

But the financial crisis showed that not knowing, and just hoping for the best, isn’t good enough.

We have to know more, and we have to be able to trust the people who are looking after our money to be sure that we have a secure future.

That’s a bit of a leap of faith for most of us! Which is why I’m so pleased that I’m part of an organisation that is doing the detailed work on my behalf.

It’s called a trade union – and everyone should be part of one!

My union, UNISON, has been looking closely at what happens to our pensions.  It's complicated stuff.  But put simply, the largest 10 pension funds in the world are the savings of Public Service workers. If the UK's local government pension scheme's assets were put together, it would rank as the 4th largest pension fund in the world, at around £150 billion.

But what control over it do we have? In the past, not a lot!

UNISON has been arguing that workers must be represented – and we’re winning the argument. Half the seats on the Local Government Pension Scheme fund boards in England and Wales are now reserved for scheme members. But they need support. So UNISON has been developing a comprehensive Capital Stewardship programme - the first of it’s kind for a trade union in the UK. To make sure that representatives can carry out their vital role properly.

And we’ve been doing detailed research. It shows that by structuring the funds properly, by getting efficiencies of scale and cutting the multiple fees charged, the returns for members can be massively improved, and crucial conflicts of interest removed.

For too long, our hard-earned funds have been managed in the interests of those who run the system – not the workers who created the value in the first place. That in turn leads to runaway executive pay; lack of diversity on executive boards; the squeeze on workers pay and pensions.

And of course, how ironic it is that our savings have been used to buy the treasury bonds used to bail out the banking sector. We should be the owners but our ownership was in the hands of the very organisations responsible for the economic crisis!

So we have a great opportunity – to use the wealth that is already in our hands to help reshape society.
To safeguard the hard-earned pensions of working people – but to do even more than that – to reshape the very way our economy operates.

Conference, the Tories always say there isn’t the money – what a whopper! The money’s there, it’s ours – let’s use it for our benefit – not theirs!"

(hat tip picture Linda Hobson)

#UNDC13 Capital Stewardship fringe - Wednesday Evening

Picture from UNISON NDC Capital Stewardship fringe "time for members to govern their money" with UNISON national officer Colin Meech, Mo Baines from Greater Manchester Pension Fund (Chaired by NEC Jane Carolan in the middle)

Colin spoke about the need to bring the fund management of the local government pension (LGPS) fund "in-house"and stop being ripped off by City fund managers. He briefed us on the new governance arrangements of the LGPS which will probably come into effect in 2015 (we think).

Mo praised Colin for his work on pensions. He had been the first to point out why schools and hospitals use PFI to fund rebuilding when we have money elsewhere?

The Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) is worth £10 billion but it only has trade union  observers with no voting rights. The fund is looking into localised investments. It wants to build 240 homes for market rent. If you pay into a pension scheme then the area you live in should also benefit from scheme investments.

Mo said that fish always rot from the top. We should make sure that in the LGPS we change fund management from the top.

My question to both is that UNISON should consider regional networks of LGPS pension reps to encourage and give face to face support to reps? There use to be a national network of LGPS reps who actually sit on pension panels and committees, who could be consulted and give feed back on what they they need to help them carry out their duties.

Colin responded by saying there will be a national consultation forum. He warned us not to underestimate those who feed off your money. Do they want to give this up? There are huge vested interests. The LGPS has high fees plus hidden charges. You could clear pension deficits within 8 years if the LGPS was merged & you cut costs and raise performance.

"...the greatest threat to your pensions - Ever"

On Wednesday lunchtime there was a meeting of the UNISON London Region Pension network at ULU. This is a quarterly training meeting of UNISON member nominated representatives who sit on London Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) committees and members who are interested in pension issues. Our guest speaker was Colin Meech, who is the UNISON national officer for its Capital Stewardship Programme.

These are my notes of his presentation:  Colin pointed out that this current government is committed to cutting £85 billion in expenditure during the last 4.5 years. They charged Lord Hutton to find savings in public pension schemes to reduce government debt. Hutton was not responsible for the decision to change pension uprating from the RPI to the CPI index. Which it is estimated will "rob" £85 billon from pensioners in public schemes in the next 15 years.

It is proposed to raise contributions by 3.2% of income (over 50% increase in actual "real money" contributions). In the LGPS they aim to reduce government grant to councils by £900 million over 3 years. However, UNISON has sponsored research by the respected Dutch pension group AGP which found that if the 101 different Council pension schemes which together manage £160 billion in assets were to be merged into 14 it would cuts costs and increase income by a staggering £1.2 billion per year. But if pension contribution are increased by 50% then this could cause masses of members to leave the scheme.

Especially after the years of 0% pay rises ("pay cuts" when you take into account inflation) that Council staff have suffered. If employees leave the scheme because they cannot afford contributions then this will make it even more expensive, lose economices of scale and could lead to the collapse of the scheme. Many will then have to depend on state benefits when they retire.

It does not make sense to put at risk a long established pension scheme for 4 million people, which saves the government untold billions of pounds in benefit claims at risk, to save £300 million per year, when we could earn £1.2 billion by merger?

Capital Stewardship: UNISON London Pension Network

Next Tuesday lunchtime is the latest UNISON Capital Stewardship: London Pension network meeting. 

This is a meeting for  Greater London UNISON Pension trustees or member nominated representatives on the London Local Government Pension Schemes.

All such trustees and reps welcome!

We meet up 3 or 4 times a year to discuss issues and support each
other on what is often a very demanding, responsible and "head hurting" role.

Our Guest speaker this time will be from Fair Pensions who will be presenting on their new campaign “Tackling exploitative Pay and working conditions in the  Supply chain of the UK Largest Companies”.  Which I think will be more than interesting and relevant to trade union pension activists. 

I am just a little bit behind posting on Pension issues.  I have got reports on the latest LAPFF meeting, my last London Borough Tower Hamlets Pension scheme panel (and committee) as well as last week's really excellent annual TUC Pension Trustee event.  I must catch up.

UNISON NDC fringe - Socially just solution to the global economic crisis

This conference fringe on social justice and promoting an alternative to CONDEM savage cuts should be really interesting.

I assume that it will also complement the planned speech to conference on the Thursday morning by Richard Wilkinson about his book (co-authored) “The Spirit Level - Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better”

Sack the RBS Board!

I've just struck a blow for shareholding democracy by joining the Facebook group "RSB Directors Resign NOW".

Those (w)bankers on the Board of the bankrupt bank RBS which we as tax payers own say they will resign en mass if the Govt stops them paying out £1.5BN to their greedy banker chums.

We say as shareholders what are you waiting for?
GO NOW!!

Which I thought all sounded a little "sell out reformist" so I'm thinking of forming a group called "Sack the RBS Board". Which will no doubt make all the bastions of capitalism tremble.

Seriously I think that the government should hold firm and not submit to crude blackmail by the RBS Board and if necessary accept their resignation and replace them with people who realise that times have changed and things have moved on.

After all, we are the 84% masters now...

TUC asked by Gov to Sack Millionaire Banker Paymasters!

I could not resist this headline – but check out the excellent TUC blog Touchstone and Nigel Stanley’s post on Lord Myners speech to the Lords today

Who said “I would estimate that at least 5,000 people working in the banking industry in the UK will receive, if nothing is done, remuneration in excess of GBP1 million this year.

I think the real responsibility here must lie with the shareholders. Accordingly I have written to the National Association of Pension Funds, the CBI and the TUC urging them to use their influence to persuade trustees to ask their fund mangers: ‘What are you doing to stop these quite unreasonable and unjustified levels of remuneration?’

The decisions about bonuses are going to be made over the next six to eight weeks and it is important our major institutions engage now with the companies and say that ‘we will not support grotesque payments and if you persist in paying them we will exercise our votes to remove from the board the people who authorised them’.

Rock on Lord Myners! By co-incidence I am currently writing up my report on my latest Local Government Pension Scheme Panel and Pension committee meeting. I wish Lord Myners had said this beforehand. It would have been interesting to raise the question with our fund managers. I suppose we need to write to our Panel and Committee chairs? Will ask UNISON Capital Stewardship unit for advice methinks? Colin?

UNISON Environmental Investing Seminar 2009

This was a well attended and absorbing national seminar organised for UNISON lay pension trustees, LGPS (Local Government Pension Scheme) member nominated representatives (MNR), other Pension and environmental activists.

Held in the NUT headquarters in Kings Cross it was chaired by UNISON NEC member (and Chair of National Labour Link) Steve Warwick in his usual good humoured but “let’s get on with business” no nonsense manner. National officers responsible for UNISON’s Capital Stewardship programme (Mr Colin Meech) and UNISON Green agenda (David Arnold) organised the seminar and they also spoke and took questions.

The first speaker was Ann Pettifor who is a fellow of the New Economic Foundation (NEF) who is perhaps better known for her work with the Jubilee 2000 campaign (cancelling developing world debt) and was also one of those to have predicted as far back as 2003 the recent “Credit Crunch”. Then Colin Hines from Finance for the Future and an advisor to Green MEP, Caroline Lucas.

The last speaker was Viktor Andersson from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CPD – “on behalf of 475 investors with asserts of $55 trillion”). Alan Broughall a UNISON activist MNR on the UK Environment Agency Pension Fund was unable to attend but we had a very good written report from him explaining why this fund is seen as a model of excellence.

I hope to post in the future on the specific presentations and Q&A’s. But what struck me the most are two things. Firstly on a more general point it was really good to see many of the various different strands of UNISON working together under the same roof. We had senior national and lay officers. We had activists from different service groups from all over the union and the UK. We had non union expert speakers of international standing. In a meeting chaired by the chair of our most important Political fund (IMO). All of us working together, educating each other and exchanging ideas. This was (pardon the pun) UNISON at its best.

Secondly on a more parochial basis. I was really interested to see another possible synergy from:-
1. As a quasi-Pension trustee who is aware of the need to have safe and secure sustainable investment opportunities for my fund and my trade union members who depend on their pension in their old age.
2. As a member of a pension scheme I would not want my savings to be used to harm anyone (including my fellow workers near or far and the wider society).
3. As a housing officer I am aware of the pressing need to get the money to build new homes for the overcrowded and homeless.
4. As someone concerned about the impact of climate change on society and the need to bring our housing stock up to modern energy efficient standards and provide green jobs.

This is of course my own personal opinion but surely we should be able to create investment vehicles that make it possible for our pension’s funds to invest safely in new build properties and to retrofit our existing public housing stock to modern efficiency standards. Backed by future rental yields and savings from reduced energy costs. Not only would this be sustainable it would reduce our carbon consumption and do no harm either to other workers or the wider economy. They will provide long term security for our pension funds to match future liabilities against asserts.

Win, win, win & win?

(Picture: Encouraging Green investments)

Defending pensions in the recession

Check out the official UNISON take on the CWC seminar in the E-Focus newsletter and link to here. The “Universal Owner” argument on which UNISON made a presentation during the seminar is really powerful and persuasive. In a nutshell this theory reminds pension funds that they not only won shares in companies and sector’s but they own the economy as a whole.

If for example they invest in a company that makes excess profits by damaging the environment with carbon pollution than this will be at the cost of the value of all its other investments in companies who will suffer financially from adverse climate change.

To save our pensions we need to think outside the box. Now more than ever.

Makes sense to me.

UNISON NDC 09: Capital Stewardship Motion 63

This motion was just missed out being debated on the Friday afternoon. This is a first draft. I can't find the final hand written version. It is pretty much the same.

"Conference I am a UNISON member nominated representative on a Local Government scheme investment pension panel and pension committee for the last 16 years. In London I convene a regional network of pension reps and have been a member of the national UNISON Capital Stewardship forum.

Let me share some of experiences I have come across that has gone on Pension schemes during this time and explain why it is so important that we have more UNISON trained and supported reps on all our pension committees and trustee boards.

Firstly it is absolutely essential that we push for fair balance of trade union reps on the LGPS who have full membership of the committee - with voting rights. In the past many of us were called “observers” on these pensions’ schemes. This mean that in some schemes trade unions reps were literally only allowed to observe meetings, not allowed to raise questions, see documents or ask enquires about how their own money, their deferred pay is being managed.

A number of Treasurer and Council leaders in the past have told trade unionists trying to negotiate representation that – quote - “it would be over my dead body that I will allow a trade union rep on my pension committee”. Often these have been the schemes that had taken pensions holidays in the past or invested your money unchallenged and unquestioned in Icelandic Banks and Lehman brothers.

Also many of you would have had the company Fidelity as your fund manager. Fidelity is one of the leading contributors to the Conservative Party funds despite not declaring this conflict when they tout your schemes for business. This means that profits from your pension contributions, your deferred pay, are being funneled back into the hands of David Cameron who is ideological opposed to secure pensions and of course is planning to dismantle all public sector pensions.

Finally conference you need to be a pension rep to be a champion of human rights. Many of you will attend lobbies, go on demos, buy fair trade products or write letters in support of the environment, free trade unions and anti-poverty campaigns. Why then not be a pension rep and learn from your Union how to challenge your fund managers and make sure they take your members concerns on board with the companies that you own.

Conference – please support this motion and please get local reps to start looking after their own money.

(photo of some early UNISON pension activists preparing to do battle to save our LGPS scheme)

Local Government Pension Scheme Democracy

This is a short article I wrote for our regional Local Government conference newsletter "London Calling"

Good news at long last about trade member representation on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). Following vigorous campaigning by UNISON and many branch pension activists there has been a change in guidance issued by the Government. This has resulted in many Councils finally allowing trade unions to nominate representatives to sit on pension investment panels and committee as full members with voting rights.

There is still a lot to do. Most schemes only allow 1 or 2 trade union reps on - while UNISON argues that there should be 50% ot the total. This is the law for private funded pension schemes. So why are we in the LGPS still being treated as 2nd class? There is plenty of evidence that having members on investment funds improves performance and will help safeguard our pensions. If anyone in London is interested in finding out more about being a LGPS rep then please speak to me