Read this article in:
11 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 21/2002
A resolution calling on energy multinational Unocal to adopt a workers' rights policy was supported by over 31 percent of the shares voting at the company's annual shareholder meeting in the US this Monday.
It is a significant increase over the votes cast for a similar motion last year.
In the final tally released yesterday by Unocal, the workplace rights resolution garnered 31.34% of the voted shares, with an additional 4.47% of the voting shares abstaining on the resolution. Last year's motion gained approximately 23 percent of the vote.
The resolution tabled this year urges the board of directors to adopt and implement a company-wide employee policy based on the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. This key declaration by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) includes bans on child labour and forced labour.
The Longview Collective Investment Fund of the Amalgamated Bank and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union (PACE) sponsored the Unocal resolution proposal.
Unocal came under pressure this year from representatives of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the US national labour federation AFL-CIO and PACE, as well as religious and human rights activists, concerning the company's ongoing investments in Burma. Unocal is a joint venture partner in a gas pipeline project there with a firm owned by the Burmese military dictatorship. Pressed over a recent media report that Unocal and the Burmese regime were considering a new gas pipeline to India, Unocal CEO Charles Williamson publicly stated that the company would refrain from expanding its investments in Burma.
Further union support for Monday's vote was mobilised in Britain, where the Trades Union Congress (TUC) contacted over 100 pension funds and lobbied key investors. Information about the resolution was also sent to all 630 members of the TUC Trustees Network. A number of large UK institutional investors, including fund manager CIS and some individual pension funds, decided to vote in favour or to abstain.
The Unocal vote is "a great success for global labour solidarity," commented ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. "It also demonstrates increased social awareness by investors."
It is a significant increase over the votes cast for a similar motion last year.
In the final tally released yesterday by Unocal, the workplace rights resolution garnered 31.34% of the voted shares, with an additional 4.47% of the voting shares abstaining on the resolution. Last year's motion gained approximately 23 percent of the vote.
The resolution tabled this year urges the board of directors to adopt and implement a company-wide employee policy based on the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. This key declaration by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) includes bans on child labour and forced labour.
The Longview Collective Investment Fund of the Amalgamated Bank and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union (PACE) sponsored the Unocal resolution proposal.
Unocal came under pressure this year from representatives of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the US national labour federation AFL-CIO and PACE, as well as religious and human rights activists, concerning the company's ongoing investments in Burma. Unocal is a joint venture partner in a gas pipeline project there with a firm owned by the Burmese military dictatorship. Pressed over a recent media report that Unocal and the Burmese regime were considering a new gas pipeline to India, Unocal CEO Charles Williamson publicly stated that the company would refrain from expanding its investments in Burma.
Further union support for Monday's vote was mobilised in Britain, where the Trades Union Congress (TUC) contacted over 100 pension funds and lobbied key investors. Information about the resolution was also sent to all 630 members of the TUC Trustees Network. A number of large UK institutional investors, including fund manager CIS and some individual pension funds, decided to vote in favour or to abstain.
The Unocal vote is "a great success for global labour solidarity," commented ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. "It also demonstrates increased social awareness by investors."