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. 

Fix "Death Trap" Factories in Bangladesh

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Click here to sign the petition to H&M, Gap and Walmart for them to join a fire safety programme and fix their ""death trap factories" in Bangladesh.

I posted on the "True Price of Cheap Fashion: 120 burnt or jumped to death at Bangladesh Textile Factory Fire" here on 1 December.

Following a recent London UNISON Pension network meeting I am drawing up questions that Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) member nominated trustees should be asking their fund advisers and managers about what they are doing to make sure that the companies we invest in do not pay dividends in blood money.

Ordinary UNISON members can also ask these questions of their schemes? I will post them as soon as I can. 

True Price of Cheap Fashion: 120 burnt or jumped to death at Bangladesh Texile Factory Fire

Check out TUC Owen Tudor post at Stronger Unions on the latest fire massacre at a Bangladesh textile factory.

It is estimated that 120 workers are dead, many of them young women who died behind locked fire escapes while some even jumped to their deaths to avoid being burnt alive.

Owen is completely right that the best way to protect these vulnerable and exploited workers are strong and independent trade unions.

But this does not let British, European and USA companies which invest in such factories or source cheap clothes in Bangladesh to sell in the West off the hook. Nor pension or insurance companies who make money from these companies or to be frank the consumers who buy products without knowing the conditions that the human beings who sweated to make them endure. Have we all got blood on our hands?

Tazreen Fashions who owns the factory apparently makes goods for "H&M, Walmart, Denim, Marks and Spencer, Carrefour, IKEA and others". It is alleged that it was widely known that this factory was unsafe but nothing was done.

Next week there is a meeting of the UNISON London Pension network and I will be asking members to bring up this up with their fund managers. What are they doing to make sure that the companies we invest in make sure that such things cannot happen again? This is an investment as well as an ethical issue. Not only should pension funds (and pensioners) not want to prosper from investing in companies that kills its workers but there is now overwhelming evidence that companies that act responsibly produce superior long term financial returns. 

We need to make sure at a minimum that all the companies in the supply line we invest in recognise and support trade unions (Please note this also applies to all those UK organisations who disgracefully refuse to recognise and bargain with independent trade unions at home. What message are they sending?) but also that they make sure that act at all times responsibly.  

On Wednesday evening at the LAPFF conference I spoke to a Governance adviser for a leading fund manager, who told me that due to rising wages in China, mass textile production is moving to cheaper zones such as Bangladesh. So the problem is likely to get even worse. 

On Thursday evening at the LAPFF conference hotel there was a false fire alarm at 4am. While I am not for a moment comparing things with that at Tazeen Fashions, it did make me think at the time what I would do if I was trapped by raging fires and locked safety doors in my 3rd floor room. 

Unless we all do our bit as consumers and investors to demand effective change I have no doubt that I will be reporting on something equally horrific sometime soon.