Committee on Workers' Capital

Trustees Driving Real World Impact: An Interview with Cheri Hearty (Canada)

Hugues Letourneau — 2022-05-04T20:41:04Z

The first interview from the CWC's 2022 Trustee Leadership Profile Series features Cheri Hearty, a Canadian union-elected trustee and co-chair of the Pension Plan for the Employees of the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union since 2019. Despite being from a smaller plan, Cheri's knows how to pack a big punch when it comes to ESG issues.

Cheri's advice to trustees looking to improve ESG practices at their fund is to ask lots of questions to their asset managers and to join like-minded peers through networks like the CWC and the Canadian Capital Stewardship Network (CCSN). Speaking to how trustees can work together (through initiatives like the CWC's Asset Manager Accountability Initiative) to mobilize workers' capital, Cheri says, “If you feel like that small minnow in a big ocean, all of a sudden, you're ten thousand minnows in the same ocean. Collective action is really important; it can expand the effectiveness of individual trustee action.”

Cheri was interviewed in March 2022.

cwc__profile_cheri_hearty_final.pdf

Organizing the workers of the Westin Long Beach Hotel in California: Support from the Network of Trustees for Responsible Investment (RAIR) and IRCANTEC in France

Tamara Herman — 2018-04-10T23:02:30Z

This hotel's story of social dialogue began in February 2015, when workers informed their managers that they wanted to launch an organizing campaign in their hotel to join UNITE HERE, a California union committed to defending the good practices in the hotel industry.

The 500-room luxury hotel in Los Angeles has about 200 employees. It is managed by AEW Capital Management, an American subsidiary of the French management company Natixis.

Over the course of 2015, facing strong opposition from hotel management and degrading working conditions, UNITE HERE and the hotel workers organized demonstrations twice a week in front of the hotel.

In March 2015, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that the employees' complaint was receivable and began an investigation. In August 2015, the workers filed a class action suit against the hotel on the grounds of wage-and-hour violations. Then, in September 2016, UNITE HERE filed a complaint against Natixis with the French National Contact Point, the government body responsible for implementing the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

Despite these actions, the employees and the union were confronted with the reality of modern capitalism. The Westin Hotel was not directly owned by Natixis. It was owned by the Utah Public Service Pensioners' Pension Fund, which had appointed AEW Capital Management to manage its investments. And AEW had delegated the day-to-day management of the hotel to Interstate Hotels & Resorts, which manages 400 hotels.

UNITE HERE faced silence and a lack of accountability on the part of each link in this investment chain. In Utah, pension fund managers made it clear that they could not intervene in the dispute, as they had delegated all decisions to AEW. And AEW did not want to engage with the union, arguing that it did not have a direct relationship with UNITE HERE. UNITE HERE then turned to Natixis, which argued that it was not involved in the conflict and did not understand then the controversy.

The RAIR –the French Network of Trustees for Responsible Investment – was alerted to the situation and contacted Ircantec, a French pension fund that uses Natixis as one of its investment managers.

With the support of the President of Ircantec, Jean-Pierre Costes, the RAIR convened Natixis's directors in the summer of 2017. Confidential exchanges led to a solution within 3 months: the management of the hotel was entrusted to a buyer that was willing to extend union recognition to workers.

Workers were able to organize and unionize and are currently negotiating, with their new management, a labour agreement.

By: Luc Prayssac, President, RAIR

An Interview with Roslyn McLennan (Australia)

Tamara Herman — 2018-02-14T08:55:26Z

Roslyn McLennan was appointed to the Sunsuper board in 2015 as a member representative on behalf of the Queensland Council of Unions. She is also a member of the fund's Investment Committee, Remuneration, Nomination and Governance Committee, Successor Funds Transfer Committee and Claims Committee.

The CWC interviewed Roslyn in February 2018.

cwc_trustee_rmclennan_final_v2.pdf

An Interview with Philippe Soubirous (France)

Hugues Letourneau — 2017-11-30T07:41:06Z

Philippe Soubirous is Vice-President of Préfon and a board member at Ircantec, where he represents plan members as a representative of French union Force Ouvrière. He is also the co-founder of the Réseau d'administrateurs pour l'investissement responsable (Trustee Network for Responsible Investment), known as RAIR, in France.

The CWC interviewed Philippe in May 2017.

cwc_trustee_psoubirousen_final.pdf

An Interview with Sharon Hendricks (USA)

Hugues Letourneau — 2017-07-21T06:55:41Z

Sharon Hendricks is vice-chair of the California State Teacher's Retirement System and she holds a member-elected position as a community college instructor representing current educators on the CalSTRS board.

The California State Teachers' Retirement System provides retirement, disability and survivor benefits for California public school educators. The fund has approximately 914,000 members and $202 billion in assets under management as of February 2017. CalSTRS is the largest educator-only pension fund in the world and the second largest pension fund in the United States.

The CWC interviewed Sharon in March 2017.

CWC_trustee_profile_Hendricks

An Interview with José Meijer (Netherlands)

Hugues Letourneau — 2017-07-21T06:34:28Z

José Meijer, an employee representative, is the Vice-President of the Board of Trustees at ABP. The General Pension Fund for Public Employees (Pensioenfonds ABP) is the Netherlands' pension fund for the government and education sectors. The fund has 2.8 million beneficiaries and 381 EUR in assets under management as of September 2016. ABP is one of the largest pension funds in the world and a leader in responsible investment.

The CWC interviewed José in December 2016.

CWC_trustee_profile_Meijer

Keywords to be included in the first list on the homepage

Alex Gomes — 2017-07-10T13:47:47Z

- Keywords to be included in the first list on the homepage / Newsletters, Letters, Proxy Alerts, News , Briefs, Opinions, Profiles, Internal Documents