- Weixin Zha
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The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) has called on H&M and its shareholders
to create a living wage fund from the profits of the Swedish fast fashion
company. The NGO is also looking to increase appeals to investors in its
future campaigning approach.
The CCC has submitted a proposal that H&M stockholders will vote on when
they gather for the company’s annual general meeting on Tuesday. The NGO is
asking for H&M to set up a fund from all its profits made in 2018. H&M
still hasn’t fulfilled its initial commitment to pay its workers a living
wage by 2018, which is why the fund is needed, the NGO claims. The fashion
company has yet to reply to an email sent by FashionUnited seeking comment.
The proposal, which is part of CCC’s #TurnAroundHM campaign, also marks
a step in the NGO’s growing approach to address investors. “Shareholders
hold quite a lot of influence in their hands and we have noticed that a lot
of the violations we’re dealing with are also increasingly a concern to
investors,” Neva Nahtigal, campaign strategist and public outreach
coordinator at the Clean Clothes Campaign in Amsterdam, told FashionUnited
on the phone. “We definitely want to use this case as something we’re
building on in the future.”
The CCC bought five H&M shares in order to submit the proposal – a
proposal that the Italian foundation Fondazione Finanza Etica already vowed
to vote in support of. Major investors in H&M such as the Persson family,
AP4, Alecta, Folksam, Nordea, Storebrand, and Swedbank have also been
contacted by CCC regarding its proposal to create a living wage fund.
While the latest campaign measure by CCC may likely remain just a
symbolic act, it nonetheless highlights the growing awareness placed on the
role of investors. At the same time, some investors are also increasingly
worried about the failure of fashion companies to tackle issues in the
supply chain, such as Modern Slavery or working safety, as statements from
the Human Corporate Rights Benchmark and the Interfaith Center on Corporate
Responsibility have shown.
Picture: Clean Clothes Campaign
