The top management of National Express Group (NEX) was once again under heavy fire at its shareholders’ meeting on 9 May in London over its industrial relationship in America.
Trade unionists as well as a British MP and a representative of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum urged the company to redress its anti-union behaviour at Durham School Bus Services, the company's US subsidiary.
Workers presented evidence of the poor safety standards of vehicle maintenance to the Annual General Meeting (AGM). New research by the US Teamsters Union of 165 drivers and monitors employed by Durham in South Carolina last summer showed that buses had frequent breakdowns when students were on board, many were overcrowded and a catalogue of mechanical malfunctions was reported, such as broken heaters and speedometers.
In support of the Teamsters, which has been campaigning to organise Durham workers, Unite the Union, RMT, ASLEF and TSSA, who all represent NEX workers in the UK, released a joint letter to shareholders. It contrasted the long record of recognising trade unions in the UK, where the management adheres to the 2002 NEX corporate responsibility report, with the company's industrial relations in North America. The letter stated: “In school bus yard after school bus yard the workers' reports of opposition from management when attempting to form a union are all too similar. In 57 instances the company had to reach a settlement with the US National Labor Relations Board because of its behaviour. The company has even been found by a judge to have sacked a worker in California to intimidate workers from voting for union representation.”
The letter urged the board of directors to strengthen the company’s oversight and reporting of employment issues. It called on NEX to expand the remit of its safety and environment committee to include responsibility for strategy and oversight of staff management and to greatly enhance disclosure to shareholders of its human capital policies, practices and compliance with international covenants. It concluded: “Transparency and good reporting of human capital practices can reveal crucial financial, reputational, political and other risks to the company's long-term success."
Teamsters general president James Hoffa commented: "We are calling on National Express to act as a more responsible global company. It's high time all of its North American workers are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve".
ITF inland transport secretary Mac Urata, who took part in the AGM, said: "NEX said today that the top management themselves will investigate these labour issues and that workers could contact them if local managers don’t listen to their problems. This is clearly unrealistic with the large numbers employed in the US alone. The company’s human resources policy needs to suit its global business expansion; currently their foreign reputational risk assessment is very poor."
He added: “The new NEX chair has the opportunity to bring about positive change so we were disappointed to hear him say that the company’s industrial relationship policy in America is different from Europe because ‘US labour laws are different’. ITF and its affiliates in the countries where NEX operates and expands its businesses will keep up the pressure until it universally follows the principles of international labour standards on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.”
The Unite/Teamsters report, ‘National Express Group’s Diminution of Labor Rights in the U.S’, can be found here.
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