Investors should be engaging on low wages and insecure work with supermarket retailers. Retail workers are one of the largest groups of low-wage workers in the UK. Supermarket workers have played a critical role through the Covid-19 pandemic and many in society think they should be rewarded for their efforts and the risks they have taken especially as they now face a cost of living crisis.
In this context, it is good to see investors escalating their engagement on the Living Wage with the supermarket sector. It is essential that the progress made during the pandemic is locked in and real wages do not fall during a period of high inflation. ShareAction would like to see investors engaging on wages across the supermarket sector and voting in support of the resolution at Sainsbury’s in July.
This briefing has provided investors with the arguments and the tools to engage retailers on these topics. We hope it will enable investors to take more robust engagement with the retailers on low wages and insecure work, resulting in better pay for hundreds of thousands of UK retail workers.
Investors interested in further collective engagement on the topic of Good Work are welcome to join ShareAction’s Good Work coalition, to get in touch for more information, or to share examples of successful engagements.