The Radical Edge

A better world? Yes, of course, but how the doozy do we go about making it so?

Today's Guardian carries a story about a Tesco shareholder getting together with a number of other small shareholders to table a resolution at Tesco's AGM to compel the supermarket to enforce higher standards in dealing with suppliers and farmers across its global supply chain.

"The resolution would oblige Tesco to appoint independent auditors to ensure that workers in its supplier factories and farms are guaranteed "decent working conditions, a living wage, job security" and the right to join a trade union of their choice. Mr Birnberg had asked Tesco's directors to include the resolution to demonstrate their commitment to ethical sourcing by backing his resolution and circulating it to shareholders.

"Company secretary Jonathan Lloyd turned down the request, claiming it was "not valid", so Mr Birnberg turned to measures included in the Companies Act to force the retailer to comply. Under Section 376 of the act he needed the support of at least 100 other shareholders who held an average of 2,000 shares each."

A number of things stick out for me here - the first is the use of the Companies Act, one of the longest pieces of legislation in British parliamentary history that was passed last year, and which the Trade Justice Movement was lobbying on to ensure a greater commitment for companies to consider environmental and social responsibilities alongside profit. I think the provision that was used in this case is one of the more benign ones, but illustrates the importance and role that legislation plays in shaping a better world. It is mundane and voluminous stuff, but as illustrates a recent trend in making campaigning more specific (a Climate Change Bill, or a Sustainable Communities Bill) things can't get more stringent that being law. This is not to advocate to legislate for everything - no nanny state involved - but in terms of signals from government and shaping what is acceptable (and even what should be acceptable) behaviour is tremendously important. The detail matters.

The second point is using investors and shareholdings as a means of effecting change. To my understanding this has really only served to ask embarassing questions to executives at AGMs in the past, because most shares in big companies are owned by other big companies, banks, pension funds and private equity firms so the actual change that can be effected is limited. Some campaigners would dismiss 'change from within' as being far too glacial and simply ineffective. Can shareholder power really change institutions towards taking its social and environmental responsibilities seriously? Do we end up simply legitimating many of their practices, no matter how distasteful, in the process?

There isn't a straightfoward answer, and one to which I have tended to be a bit skeptical in the past. But I come back to considering the global justice movement as a broad one, where some groups to try to engage with 'big business' and where others to rally outside the factory gates and form human chains. Change from within, and from without, because both complement each other, shaping societal attitudes and creating the policy space for new ideas to insert themselves. All of these matter, and the diversity of strategies involved work at multiple levels (because people are diverse too and think differently) to achieve change for a better world.