In less than two weeks, the day before the election, National Express has its annual meeting. Resolution 22 on the agenda is a shareholder proposal drafted and filed by three local authority pension funds that are members of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum.
The resolution calls on the company to commission an independent review of its US business Durham School Services in response to ongoing claims of anti-union activity. The AGM comes just a few weeks after two Labour MPs issued a report on Durham, based on a trip to the US to investigate. They concluded that there was a "systemic anti-union bias" in Durham that the National Express board of directors need to address.
The company's anti-union activity was also criticised in an Early Day Motion signed by 33 MPs at the end of the last parliament.
We are now in a situation where unions, MPs and shareholders who have looked at this issue all believe that there is a problem. Even the company's own annual report discloses that labour issues pose a risk to the success of the US business. Yet, regrettably, National Express seems reluctant to act. So we need to give them further encouragement.
If you are a trade unionist and/or Labour supporter who is trustee of a pension fund or similar I urge you to vote for this resolution, and give the board a clear mandate to deal with the problem in Durham.
Vote FOR Resolution 22 on 6th May.
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