globalunion

WORKERS’ RIGHTS ANDSOCIAL RESPONSIBILITYAT BARCLAYS

BARCLAYSGLOBAL ALLIANCE

BACKGROUND

Barclays is one of the biggest and most recognised names in global banking. It operates in more than 50 countries and territories around the world and boasts almost 50 million customers.

With pro�ts of £5.5 billion dollars in 2014, Barclays is the seventh-largest bank worldwide and its success is re�ected in its payments to top staff such as CEO Anthony Jenkins who was awarded a total package of £5.5 million in 2014.

The story for the majority of Barclays’ staff is, however, much more mixed. In May 2014, the bank announced a huge restructuring plan for Europe with a loss of 19,000 jobs expected across the next three years. Recent staff surveys show worryingly high stress levels amongst employees re�ecting a dangerous and widespread health issue across the �nance sector.

Barclays employees have spoken of their frustration at large executive bonuses arriving at a time when employees are struggling on a daily basis under job losses, low wages and sales pressure.

UNI Finance is the Global Union for �nance and insurance workers and represents 3 million employees in more than 200 trade unions worldwide. UNI Finance believes that for Barclays to be a truly responsible and respected employer it is essential that the voices and opinions of its workers must be heard and respected.

The UNI Finance Barclays Alliance calls on Barclays to lift its standards globally by raising minimum wages for employees who work hard every day to add value to the company. Barclays is a certi�ed “Living Wage” employer in the UK and the UNI Barclays Alliance is asking the company to do the same in other countries outside the UK, especially in Southern Europe and Africa.

BARCLAYS CORPORATE PROFILE:KEY STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

INTRODUCTION Barclays Bank has long put itself forward as a socially responsible bank. From 2003 to 2009, it was one of a dozen corporate members of the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights (BLIHR), which volunteered to “test drive” the UN Norms on Business and Human Rights when many other companies avoided showing support for the Norms for fear that that would lead to binding commitments to respect human rights. Barclays is a long-time member of the UN Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), which seeks to integrate sustainability concerns into the �nancial system.

The bank is also a member of the Carbon Disclosure Project, was one of the earliest signatories of the Equator Principles and is a signatory of the Wolfsberg Principles on anti-money laundering. It was a founding member of the Thun Group on Human Rights, which has laid the groundwork for the banking sector’s

implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

But the company’s poor practices have taken a toll on its reputation in recent years. It has suffered a slide in its ESG (environmental, social and governance) ratings due to serious breaches of business ethics, product integrity and corporate governance. Its behavior has been the object of severe criticism not only by civil society organizations but also by investors, consumers and government regulatory agencies. While the scandals it was associated with led to new management at the helm, the company is still under heavy scrutiny for many aspects of its ESG performance.

This pro�le, which is not meant to be comprehensive presents some of the bank’s key strengths and weaknesses.

Human rights commitmentsIn Barclays’ human rights statement (December 2010), the very �rst principle is: “We will create a universal employment environment that promotes and protects the rights of the individual.” In the statement’s appendix, Barclays says it is committed to respecting the ILO Core Conventions. In this appendix, it also cites a UNI survey of 2007 in which Barclays “was rated top among 25 major �nancial institutions in respect of union rights and freedom of association.” As noted above, Barclays was one of the four banks that founded the Thun Group (May 2011) to explore the implications of the UN Guiding Principles for the banking sector. In October 2013, the group (by then 7

banks) released a discussion paper on the UNGPs and banks. To their credit, the banks acknowledged that there was a moral case (and not just a business case) for human rights. But as critics noted, the paper showed a lack of attention to banks’ potential impact on the human rights of their own employees (and customers), failed to address the impacts of lobbying and tax avoidance, and did not address access to remedy.

Its integral role in the Thun Group opens Barclays to questions about how it addresses human rights in its own operations.

STRENGTHS/POSITIVE ASPECTS

Employee mental healthSince 2012, Barclays has worked with a number of NGOs and foundations to raise awareness of mental health issues. Barclays notes that its “This is me” campaign shows employees “talking openly and frankly” about how they have faced mental health challenges. The campaign aims to show that mental health conditions do not de�ne a person, and to raise awareness of the support Barclays can provide.

“This is me” is part of the company’s internal policy review on mental health, and according to a recent source, the company planned to roll the campaign website out internationally in late 2014, “starting with South Africa, then Asia and the U.S. In October 2014

Barclays signed the “Time to Change” pledge in the UK, an NGO program to challenge mental health stigma. The bank’s actions as part of this pledge include: integrating mental health into “all relevant HR policies”, identifying training needs and improving mental health service to staff.

In a job advertisement, for example, Barclays states, “Our recruitment process doesn’t discriminate, so if you’re keen and willing to work hard, Barclays will support you to stay healthy.”

See below, on Barclays France, for a contrast to this picture.

Employee Pay/Living WageIn 2013 Barclays was accredited as a UK Living Wage employer, “which recognized the Bank’s commitment to ensure that all its employees and those employees of third party contractors who provide services to us at our sites, are paid at least the current London or UK Living Wage.” It has also extended this commitment to its UK apprentices.

On its website, Barclays highlighted recent research on the business case for a living wage, noting that for the bank, this includes “improving employee engagement, building union relationships and helping win new business.” Barclays says it has supported the living wage since 2003.

The Salz Review: negative and positiveIn 2012, in the wake of the LIBOR scandal (Barclays’ manipulation of the London inter-bank lending rate), the company commissioned an independent review from City lawyer Anthony Salz. One of his �ndings was that “there was an over-emphasis on short-term �nancial performance, reinforced by remuneration systems that tended to reward revenue generation rather than serving the interests of customers and clients.” Another was that Barclays’ top executives were paid well above the median for peer banks. In addition, the review accused the bank of having a confrontational relationship to regulators.

Salz also concluded that the company’s tax avoidance division (SCM, structured capital markets) had generated over £1 billion a year (2007-2010). The �ndings prompted one lawmaker to accuse “the secretive division of ‘industrial scale tax avoidance.’” The then-new CEO, Antony Jenkins, pledged to close the division. But Salz found that 100 bankers were redeployed around the bank instead of being �red. He also described Barclays bankers as “losing ‘a sense of proportion and humility.’”

At the time of the announcement that Barclays would dismantle the SCM, the company also drew criticism because the company was expected to disclose that it had paid out up to £2 billion in bonuses, and restructuring would probably mean 2,000 job cuts. This seems to be a refrain: the company’s paying out bonuses to some at the same time that it makes large-scale job cuts.

On the positive side, according to its 2014 Annual Report, Barclays stated it was on a “transformational journey” and planned eventually to implement all 34 recommendations published in April 2013 in the Salz review. It reported on steps it had taken to address certain of the recommendations. For example, to address concerns related to incentives and pay, Barclays reports that in December 2013 it changed its incentive policies for UK retail sales employees to eliminate product-sales incentives. One question is whether the company is rolling this out to other parts of its operations, and to what extent product-sales incentives have affected working conditions for Barclays employees in other countries.

Starting in 2007, there has been a stream of seemingly relentless bad news about Barclays’ practices, from the LIBOR scandal to its involvement in gold price �xing and subprime mortgages, to selling faulty mortgage-backed securities and several other controversies. The product- and business ethics-related scandals delivered an enormous hit to the company’s reputation as captureded in the recent rating agency pro�les.

The bank began in 2012 to address these controversies by appointing new management (the CEO and chair resigned in the wake of the LIBOR scandal), commissioning internal and external reviews and undertaking policy changes. But negative scrutiny has continued, for example, in relation to controversial investments and remuneration packages.

Controversial investmentsAs of February 2015, Barclays was under �re for continuing to �nance coal. A harsh piece in The Guardian that month noted that, according to an NGO report of 2014, Barclays “is now the lead �nancier of mountaintop removal coal mining” although many of its competitors have gotten out of �nancing this kind of mining. In addition, over the last decade (per the same source), Barclays was the #4 �nancier of coal. In April 2015, the Guardian reported that Barclays had released a policy document “without publicity” the previous month saying it would no longer �nance companies undertaking mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining unless those companies committed to end MTR “within a reasonable timeframe.” The article quoted an environmental campaigner, who, while welcoming the bank’s move on MTR, noted that Barclays still had an “appalling record in fossil fuel �nance.”

BankTrack has reported that Barclays is helping to �nance the Kusile coal-�red power plant (expected to be fully operational in 2018) in Mpumalanga, South Africa. BankTrack asserts that the project continues to promote outdated, heavily polluting and harmful fossil fuel technology. It charges that Kusile will lead to “local population displacement,” “economic harm”, “high pollution and health impacts” and “signi�cantly contribute to climate change”. The organization called for the project to be stopped and for banks to end their �nancing of new coal-�red power plants. In November 2014, several banks, including Barclays, were sued in NY for helping to �nance terrorism through their ties to Iran. The banks have “acknowledged transferring billions of dollars on behalf of Iran, which has long been suspected of funding and training the terrorist groups that carried out attacks against Americans in Iraq.”

In 2014, Barclays was criticized for investing in Elbit Systems, Lockheed Martin and Textron, three

companies that allegedly produce arms used in Israel’s Operation Protective Edge. Barclays denied it was an investor in the defense industry. It said it had previously owned BGI, which did invest signi�cantly in defense companies but was sold by Barclays in 2009. It denied investing in Elbit.

In November 2013, ActionAid published a report accusing Barclays of promoting the use of tax havens by those investing in Africa. Barclays denied the allegations.

Barclays has also been criticized for its May 2013 decision to close the accounts of money transfer operators (MTO) providing remittances to Somalia, out of fears that the transfers could be supporting terrorism or money laundering. It was one of the last large banks to pull out of MTOs. One critical piece noted that, “the irony, people say now, is that Barclay’s move will drive money transfers underground, beyond any scrutiny at all”, and that those who will suffer from its move are the poor.

In 2012, Barclays won a Public Eye award, given by the Bern Declaration for the “worst cases of contempt for the environment and human rights.” The “award” was tied to accusations that, through speculation, Barclays drove food prices up “at the expense of the world’s poorest people.” According to the World Development Movement, Barclays had “aggressively opposed” European regulation to crack down on speculation. In February 2014, the bank announced it would stop speculating on food.

The Independent reported in 2011 that Barclays was one of several UK banks funding cluster bomb manufacturers. The UK signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2010 but a legal loophole allows �nancial institutions to fund cluster bomb makers as long as the banks do not invest directly in the bombs. The investments are not illegal but raise questions about banks’ “moral behavior”.

CONTROVERSIES AND CHALLENGES

RemunerationThe company continues to receive negative attention for its remuneration practices. In March 2015, PIRC (a shareholder advisory service in London) published an article noting harsh criticism of Barclays by the Local

Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) for allowing the chair of its remuneration committee to stay on despite shareholders’ clear unhappiness with the company’s approach to remuneration. LAPFF was quoted as saying:

The company claimed it was eventually replacing Sunderland but PIRC said its claims “cannot conceal that yawning gap in governance standards.”

The bank’s 2014 annual report does not include information on the pay package of Barclays Africa’s CEO, Maria Ramos, in particular. However, research turned up some data elsewhere. As a contextual note, Barclays sees Africa as a key area for growth and wants to be the “bank of choice” there. In terms of contribution to Barclays Group, the adjusted return on equity (RoE) for its Africa operations has risen from 7.2% (2012) to 8.1% (2013) to 9.3% (2014).

One of the bank’s targets is to double this RoE. It also wants to become “top 3 by revenue” in its �ve biggest markets in Africa (South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Botswana and Zambia) and to increase revenue share from outside South Africa to 20-25%. To do this, its focus will be: to prioritize growth outside South Africa, to grow its Corporate business on the continent, to expand Wealth, Investment Management and Insurance there, and to “develop and invest in diversity and talent.”

A 2013 article reported that Ramos’s pay in 2013 had fallen 19% to R16.7m (worth $1.58m in December 2013) compared to 2012, as she had forfeited her bonus “due to ‘disappointing’ 2012 results.” But in April 2014, Moneyweb (a South African �nancial news source) published a highly critical article entitled “R29m for Destroying Shareholder Value”, noting that Barclays Africa Group’s 2013 integrated report showed a pay package of R28.7 million for Ramos. Moneyweb questioned whether this was “an

Having messed up remuneration for 2013 Sir John [Sunderland] has in fact stayed on as chair and presided over another year of still unacceptably high pay for 2014, and is still in place in March 2015. It’s nothing short of misleading shareholders. Whether it is grossly excessive bonuses, the overinvestment in the substantially underperforming investment bank, support for Bob Diamond, and now £1,250m �nes for Forex misconduct, Sir John has been part of every decision that has been disastrous for shareholder returns and the reputation of the bank.

appropriate package for a CEO who heads up the laggard of the big four, has serially underdelivered on minority shareholder returns while favouring the parent company, and comes under �re from analysts for being distracted by other responsibilities and unrelated directorships?”

The article went on to assert that Barclays Africa Group (BAG) had lost staff, clients had left “in their droves” in 2013 and that a poor compound annual growth rate for the previous �ve years had “coincide[d] with roughly the same period Ramos has been CEO.” It also noted that, as Absa’s share price had fallen, speculation of a takeover had risen. Other pay packages at Absa in 2013 included:

David Hodnett, deputy CEO and �nance director: R21-millionCraig Bond, head of retail and business banking, R27-millionStephen van Coller, corporate and investment banking, R25-millionBAG senior managers received R5m each on average that year

MSN Money reported in October 2014 on bank CEO pay packages at other large banks in South Africa. It appears Ramos’s pay package in 2013 (R28.7m) was similar to what several of her peers earned. The chair of StandardBank was quoted as saying that “the African growth story is more important than any ‘argument about remuneration’”, and that “market pressures” were pushing top executive pay toward “developed market norms”. MSN Money pointed out, however, that “this stage is set in one of the world’s most unequal societies.”

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In September 2014 the consulting �rm Technologia published a report on Barclays RBB France (one of the largest foreign banks in the country). The study found that, on all “axes” of psychosocial risks (RPS) except “emotional demands”, Barclays RBB present-ed a very high risk in comparison with its sector and often above the maximums (for all sectors) published by Dares, the statistics bureau of the Ministry of Labor. These axes include socioeconomic insecurity, harassment, work relations, autonomy, con�icts of value and work demands.

The study also noted that the company provides weak support, there were frequent instances of harassment, many employees are subject to burnout and the “psychosocial risks are real, multiple, affect a signi�cant proportion of employees and are increasing”. 37.7% of respondents are exposed or highly exposed to professional burnout.

Ratings were more negative for workplaces outside Paris, and these have worsened more in 2008-2014 than at the Paris headquarters (p. 48). For the period 2011-14, a notable number of respondents said working conditions had deteriorated. Reasons given included: future insecurity; a sense that manage-ment is not listening; poor communications; inhumane management; commercial pressure and dysfunctional IT. There has also been an erosion of pride in working for Barclays across all units except Legal/HR/Communication/Management.

The study, based on a survey (600 responses, 1,081 sent out) and interviews (64 employees) , also asserted that the September 2014 announcement by London that it would sell Barclays retail banking in Spain and no longer invest in the network in France added to the context of anxiety of previous succes-sive reorganizations. Management had apparently disregarded another outside �rm’s earlier report and recommendations on the impacts of a proposed PSE and the “urgency of the risks” associated with it (including psychosocial). Compared to labor ministry statistics, Barclays employees in France complained more of excessive work demands, lack of autonomy, lack of manager support and lack of recognition of their work.

On the positive side, Barclays France workers point to many fewer “ethical con�icts” than is the average in Finance/Insurance, “without doubt explained by the absence of ‘forced sales’ practices so common in retail banking.” (p. 43) But the survey turns up important evidence of “prevented work” – employ-ees complain they cannot do quality work, and many respondents fear losing their jobs.

CFDT told UNI in March 2015 that the most notable thing is the absence of social dialogue, and that the management is “closed” to all manner of discussion. Further, Barclays France has attempted twice (2013 and 2014) to present a restructuring plan. Both times, the CFDT brought the company to court over the plans (in the second case, the union contested the �gures on likely job losses, for example, and argued that the company was lying about these). And in both cases, a court ruled against the company and struck the reorganization plan down.

In January 2015, the company told the CFDT that it would not contest the court’s decision, but in February, it told the union it was going ahead with the reorganization anyway. According to CFDT, the company plans to create call centers that would pull staff away from current branches, leaving remaining employees to carry out multiple jobs. Employees who refuse to move to the call centers will be made redundant.

CFDT’s account highlights the stress and uncertainty to which Barclays France RBB workers are currently subjected, as recounted in the Technologia report. It also demonstrates the company’s apparent disregard for two court decisions.

The �ndings of the French report and CFDT’s account could be contrasted with Barclay’s statement in its Annual Report 2014: “we aim to provide a working environment supporting productiv-ity and performance, and promoting individual physical and emotional well-being”.

Employee Stress (Barclays France)

UNI Finance distributed a survey to its af�liates asking about the number of employees in the country, the number of job cuts in recent years, the level of stress, minimum wage for a bank teller and quality of social

In the UK, Barclays counts around 65,000 workers, which makes it the largest operation worldwide. It is estimated that between 18,000 and 24,000 jobs have been cut since the beginning of the �nancial crisis, including between 5,000 and 7,000 last year. However the impacts of the heavy job losses have been mitigated through the departure of volunteers with a good redundancy package.57% of the workers reported that they were suffering from work-related stress, which is above the global average for Barclays (50%). The minimum salary in Barclays UK is £ 14,300. The quality of social dialogue is good: the union has a partnership relationship with the company which serves the union and its members both internally and externally and has negotiated good policy improvements lately, including the doubling of maternity leave and pay increases for over 7,000 cashiers regardless of their salary.

In Italy, there are around 1,000 employees. The workforce was 1,600 in 2008. The restructuring plans from respectively 2011 and 2013 resulted in 170 and 270 job cuts. There is no speci�c �gure about the level of stress but it is assumed that it is quite high due to the uncertainty about jobs in the future. Barclays announced that the company would exit the retail banking market in Italy by 2016. In 2015, the Italian union has secured an agreement to freeze job cuts at least for this year. The minimum gross salary for a cashier is around 24,050 euros a year (tax is around 24%). According to the unions, the social dialogue is frank and open. As the National Credit Contract is under discussion, the relationship between the union and the company had been suspended until a positive outcome from the negotiation. The new national agreement will now apply to Barclays as well as other banks present in the country.

In Portugal, Barclays counted 2,577 employees in 2010. This number fell down to1,220 in February 2015 which means a signi�cant job loss of 1,357. Barclays is planning to sell the unit in 2016 but for this year no further job cuts are being planned. The minimum salary is around 737 euros per month.The union is trying to build a constructive dialogue at national and EU level through the EWC to prepare better conditions for the next restructuring process.

In Spain, there are around 221 employees. The percentage of workers that is suffering from work-related stress is estimated to be 50 to 75%, and this is mainly due to the restructuring process as the employees are expecting more job cuts. At the moment, the major concern from the unions is the fact that local management may not respect the existing agreements with the unions, including regarding overtime.

dialogue. The results of the survey do not pretend to present a comprehensive study but rather a snapshot of workers’ rights reality in Europe and Africa. We present here the key �ndings from each country.

SURVEY ABOUT WORKING CONDITIONS ANDSOCIAL DIALOGUE IN EUROPE AND AFRICA

BankTrack, in a December 2014 report, Banking with Principles, assessed 32 banks against the UN Guiding Principles. Coming in around the middle of the pack, Barclays scored 4 points out of a possible 12 (the highest score earned by any company was 8). BankTrack calls Barclays out for poor reporting on

human rights (score: 0 out of a possible 3) and access to remedy (score: 0.5 out of a possible 2). It also criticizes the bank for its involvement in �nancing projects associated with human rights violations (e.g. Kaltim Prima coal mine in Indonesia). It judged Barclays’ human rights policy commitment to be “merely aspirational”.

General weakness on human rights

Europe

In France, there were 1823 employees in 2011 and 1411 employees at the end of 2014 which represents 415 job lost either through job cuts or voluntary departures. There were 99 job cuts in 2013 and 130 job cuts in 2014 or 229 job cuts for these two years. Since the new management was put in place, the number of dismissals for professional mistakes has been multiplied by 10.The percentage of workers reporting a high level of stress is estimated around 50 to 75%. The Technologia research group commissioned an expert report (as mentioned above) which laid out that 25 to 30% of the workers were close to burn out. The

The biggest challenges I am facing in my country are low salaries, high levels of stress, lack of recognition and lack of decision-making power for the workers. I am uniting with my co-workers to form a union as I am hoping that this will help us to negotiate better salaries and working conditions and ensure greater job security.

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Africa

professional doctor from Paris also issued a statement warning about the psychological risks and health risks for the workers of the company. As many colleagues are on sick leave, the ones who are still at work need to deal with a heavy work load, also due to the fact that the people who have lost their jobs have not been replaced.The minimum salary is around 23,000 euros per year before tax.There is no social dialogue and no meetings between the union representatives and management. The company lost several court cases regarding its restructuring plans.

In Ghana, tthere are 1,175 employees and 1,006 union members. Barclays is considered by the union as a very cooperative social partner. Unlike in the past when the company could take decisions without consulting the union, management is now asking the union to review any decision that may have an impact on workers. The bank also recognizes the legal right of the union to represent the employees. Collective bargaining remains the main avenue for negotiating working conditions for the employees (for example in the last negotiations of February 2005, the union obtained three days of paternity leave which is more than in other banks).

In Tanzania, there are around 500 employees. Around 50 to 70% reported that they were suffering from work-related stress. Since 2013, ten branches have been closed. Around 50 employees (or ten percent of the workforce) are on short-term contracts limited to 2 to 3 months. The starting salary for a bank teller is around 298 dollars a month.The quality of social dialogue is very poor. The employees are not satis�ed with their working conditions due to high level of stress and fear of victimization if they voice their concerns. There is a high turnover with employees willing to work for another bank.Baila Shaban

Barclays Tanzania

In my current situation, I don’t earn enough to meet the needs from my family, in terms of access to education and medical treatments. But hopefully together we can make a change, improve our well-being at work and as a result for our families

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We are building a Global Alliance of Barclays workers because we want better working conditions, better salaries and better staff loans.

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In Zimbabwe, there are 482 employees and most of them are union members (403). Around 400 jobs were cut since 2008 mainly through the retrenchments which were carried out in 2010 and 2011. The employees that left were not replaced which created a lot of stress due to heavy workloads. The level of stress is being estimated at around 40% based on absenteeism due to stress related illnesses.The starting wage for a bank teller is around 630 dollars a month. Salaries for ordinary workers are too low for them to sustain a basic lifestyle as the cost of

Tawanda MutemiBarclays Zimbabwe

living in the country is relatively high. Access to loans is also limited and the poor performance management system doesn’t allow for signi�cant salary increases in comparison to the income from senior management.The quality of social dialogue is moderate due to the fact that the local management cannot take many decisions without the approval from Barclays Africa or Barclays PLC. Moreover the management usually shows hostility to dealing with the local union Zibawu.

Julius MagaiBarclays Tanzania

In Botswana, there are 1,500 employees including 777 union members as of February 2015. It is estimated that more than 75% of the workers suffer from work-related stress, especially in the commercial branches due to sales pressure in an already saturated market. Around 150 jobs have been cut since the beginning of the �nancial crisis. In 2011, 25 people were retrenched including 17 people who were dismissed under the pretext of poor performance. Others were dismissed through various disciplinary processes which has become a concern as this is becoming the mainstream mechanism to cut jobs rather than the normal retrenchment process. In 2014, 14 people were dismissed. With the issue of liquidity access in the country, the employees are expecting more job cuts this year. There are 300

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We all work for the same company and the Barclays Alliance allows us to share information about best practices, speak with one voice and improve working conditions and workers rights. In my country, we are also working for the inclusion of contract workers into the collective agreement.

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workers on short-term contracts who may not have their contract renewed. The union is asking the company to have the contractors under the collective agreement. The salary for a bank teller is around 520 US dollars a month, compared to around 15,000 dollars for the operations director. The car allowance for for senior managers is more than a team leader's entry point salary. The car and housing allowances combined is double a supervisor 's salary yet a supervisor is considered to be better paid than a new joiner. The union is still facing some unilateral implementations of policies which affect working conditions, despite the fact that there is a collective agreement which stipulates that management should discuss these issues with the union �rst.

Lebogang KeabetsweBarclays Botswana

Contrast between CSR commitments and practices: Barclays is sometimes seen as a “�rst mover” and leader on corporate social responsibility and ESG; Barclays has been a member of the UNEP Finance initiative for a long time, was involved early on in the Equator Principles and is a founding member of the Thun Group. However, the number and

severity of scandals involving the company’s conduct and its products have led to company efforts to address reputational damage, and Barclays admits that it “continues to face conduct and litigation risk”. . Why does Barclays continue to perform unevenly in areas such as workers’ rights, fair pay, responsible and sustainable investing, responsible products and transparency?

Many thanks to all the UNI Finance af�liates who responded to the survey.Corporate Research: Liz UmlasCoordinator: Elise Buckle (UNI Finance Policy Coordinator) Editing: Mike Sunderland (UNI Deputy Director of Communications) Layout: Luana Albarellos

Contrast between countries and selectivity of responsible behaviour: the survey conducted by UNI shows some differences between some countries like the UK or Ghana where social dialogue is very positive and other countries where the lack of social dialogue has some impacts on working conditions. Is there a disconnect between a strong

approach to workers’ rights and well-being in the UK (eg commitments to a living wage and employee mental health) and operations elsewhere? Barclays announced plans to roll its mental health campaign website out beyond the UK, but it remains unclear what its commitment in this area comprises in other countries. Will it be applied in France?

Inconsistency on pay: there are still come concerns regarding high executive bonuses and executive pay in Europe and Africa. How does Barclays’ Living Wage commitment �t with the low wages paid to its workers in

Africa, and why should only Barclays’ UK workers be given the chance for a living wage? The fact that the company is growing its investments and workforce in Africa should be an opportunity to roll out the Living Wage commitment to Africa.

CONCLUSIONS

We present here some of the key �ndings and questions to the company: