ACTU to pressure Labor for worker representatives on private boards
July 18 2018
Financial Review
Unions will pressure a Labor government to back the appointment of employee representatives on the boards of major private companies.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions congress passed a resolution on Wednesday that called on Labor to "implement a policy of installing employees on company and government managed boards", including at the Reserve Bank.
A 220-page industrial relations policy passed at the end of the congress also backed scrapping ballots for protected industrial action, outlawing employer lockouts, restoring sector-wide bargaining rights and prohibiting non-union enterprise agreements.
The employee board member resolution has the backing of ALP president Wayne Swan and calls on a future Labor government to "immediately appoint a representative from a union to the Reserve Bank of Australia".
The ACTU pointed to industry funds and Germany and Sweden as examples where there are private sector boards with employee representation.
"Overseas experience shows that employee representation on boards will allow for a culture of honesty, transparency and joint ownership in the future of the enterprise – this should lead to higher wages outcomes and better company performance in a mutually beneficial exchange.
"Importantly it will allow for employee interests to be tabled at a board level in a non-confrontational manner."
Worker reps protect from scandals
Finance Sector Union secretary Julia Angrisano argued employee board representatives would help prevent some of the banking scandals seen in the Hayne royal commission, pointing to banks selling customers products they could not afford or did not want.
Despite the Sedgwick review last year recommending banks remove sales targets, Ms Angrisano claimed banks were simply replacing them with "customer needs analysis".
The process involved bank employees quizzing customers to find out their needs to sell more products.
"Frontline staff are put on performance management, which endangers their ongoing employment, by referencing how many customer needs analyses did you get today," she told the congress.
While the Sedgwick review recommended banks not use leaderboards to compare sales performances, Ms Angrisano said "they're not called leaderboards any more, they're call visual management tools".
"Banks are still setting unfair and unreasonable targets and the regimes that pressure workers to push products is acute," she said.
"If a customer says no, it's an invitation."
The ACTU congress also passed resolutions to jail employers for breaching safety laws that resulted in a death and for a Labor government to not replace the building industry watchdog when it abolished it.
Industry funds may consider CEO pay
Earlier, Mr Swan spoke at the congress where he called for board reform and for shareholders to "agitate for a binding vote to cap CEO pay", which he said was "out of control".
ACTU secretary Sally McManus told reporters industry super fund trustees may also consider executive pay levels when making decisions to invest members' money.
"I do know many of those trustees have raised many times that you've got to ensure within your company ethical standards," she said.
"And when you do have a situation like at Domino's when they're wholesale engaging in wage theft and they're rewarding the CEO who is part of an operation that has been breaking our laws, that's not a business model we would support.
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ACTU Push For Worker Reps On Company Boards (Read 496 times)
