Striking platinum miners in South Africa have accepted an agreement with Lonmin offering pay rises of between 11 and 22% and plan to return to work on Thursday. This is a welcome end to five weeks of industrial action marked by mass protests and 45 deaths. However, there is a danger that the manner of its resolution could cause further unrest in the future and that miners at other firms will see illegal strikes as effective, reports the Financial Times. Lonmin’s strike was resolved not by the miners’ unions but by informal representatives of the strikers including miners, community leaders and the South African Council of Churches. There is still no guarantee that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union – a rising, militant rival to the National Union of Mineworkers, will accept the deal. (Financial Times*, Financial Times*, The Times*, The Guardian, Reuters)
Burberry stops handbag production in Chinese factory in ethics row
British-owned luxury goods manufacturer Burberry has pulled production of its bags from a factory in the Guangdong Province of China. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, workers at the Simone factory have been working up to 11 hours a day on a six-day working week. In June 2010 Burberry joined the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), adopting the ETI Code. One section of the code states that "workers shall not on a regular basis be required to work in excess of 48 hours per week and shall be provided with at least one day off for every seven-day period on average". (The Guardian)
Environment
Researchers unveil Facebook-inspired CO2 calculator
Columbia University's Earth Institute in the United States has unveiled a ground-breaking Facebook-inspired tool that can rapidly calculate the carbon footprint of thousands of products simultaneously. The research group announced it had created the tool as part of a project designed to help PepsiCo develop standardised calculations of the lifecycle of thousands of its products. The group states that the tool could reduce the need for businesses to hire external experts to carry out environmental impact analyses, saving time and money. The team is also now looking at transferring the methodology from carbon to other arenas, such as water use. (Business Green)
Diversity
Royal Mail chief backs staff quotas for women
Royal Mail chief executive Moya Greene has become one of the most senior figures in corporate Britain to publicly back recruitment quotas for women in the workplace, including the boardroom. Greene's remarks come as the business secretary, Vince Cable, has been leading the fight against attempts to introduce a 40% female quota on stock market-listed company boards across the European Union. She has stated that she is prepared to publicly champion quotas, despite many of her peers in business having lobbied furiously to block such a move from Brussels. (The Guardian)
Responsible Investment
Hermes loses control of activist funds
An era in shareholder activism in the UK has drawn to a close with the sale by Hermes of the flagship investment arm that was a pioneer in challenging boards and pushing for corporate government reform. Founded in 1998, it led high-profile campaigns for corporate change at some of Europe’s biggest corporations, including Vodafone, Siemens, Volkswagen and Prudential. The fund manager, owned by BT’s pension fund, has agreed to sell Hermes Focus Asset Management to RWC Partners, a London-based hedge fund. (Financial Times*)
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