Workers Rights and Labour Standards

Workers from around the world want their employers to uphold their fundamental rights and to provide decent work. The CWC works with unions, who represent workers, and the trustees of pension funds, who invest in companies, to promote the active engagement of investors with companies on the topic of workers’ human rights and labour standards.

The CWC adds value to the campaigns of trade unions that touch on fundamental worker rights by scaling up investor interest and through responses to specific issues. In recent years, the CWC has worked on campaigns that include the misclassification of workers in the logistics sector, excessive use of contractual workers in the retail sector, use of forced labour in the construction sector and breaches of the right to collective bargaining in the airline sector.

The CWC works with investors across asset classes, including public equities, infrastructure and private equity and utilises shareholder dialogues and proxy voting. Furthermore, we identify strategic opportunities to weigh into public consultations and coordinate responses in order to promote the integration of workers’ human rights as environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in financial and company regulation.

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