UN Sustainable Development GoalsBeta

Target 8.8: Protect labor rights and safe working environments

Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment

Pivotal Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.

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Why shareholder democracy is pivotal

Freedom of association, workplace safety and treatment of migrant and precarious workers are set day to day by employers in retail, logistics, food service, manufacturing and gig platforms. The ILO finds migrant workers more than three times as likely to be in forced labor as non-migrants. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility published Best Practice Guidance on Ethical Recruitment of Migrant Workers in 2017 and won no-fee recruitment commitments from Ford, General Motors, Hormel, Marriott and Michael Kors. Employer opposition to union organizing and lobbying on labor rules is the main obstacle. In 2023 a proposal for an independent assessment of Starbucks' adherence to its freedom of association commitments won over 52 percent of shares. The 2026 CWC tracker records further votes at SkyWest, 26.9 percent on a freedom of association and collective bargaining assessment, and at Dollar General, 29.2 percent on human rights. It also records cases where the SEC let Amazon and Kroger keep freedom of association proposals off the ballot. Together these show both the reach and the limits of the channel. Employer conduct is decisive and employer lobbying is the obstacle, so owners can deliver most of this outcome.

How this was scoredPivotal

Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.

We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.

Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.

Sources

11 campaigns on record

AFL-CIO at Amazon.com Inc.☆ Follow2025 · shareholder resolution

Asked Amazon's board to commission an independent third-party assessment of how the company's use of artificial intelligence, including algorithmic productivity quotas, affects the human rights and safety of Amazon's own workforce, including warehouse workers.

Result: Proposal failed; exact vote percentage not confirmed in the sources retrieved for this research. Filed under SEC Rule 14a-8.

we found no documented change confirmed in the sources retrieved.

At Amazon's Annual Meeting, Investors Continue to Raise Significant Risks to Workers and the Environment, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR)

Domini Impact Investments at Nike, Inc.☆ Follow2023 · shareholder resolution

Asked Nike to publish a report on worker-driven social responsibility and explain why it has not joined binding worker-safety agreements like the Pakistan Accord (which competitors Adidas and Puma have signed), and raised concerns about forced labor and roughly $2.2 million in allegedly unpaid wages owed to about 4,000 garment workers in Cambodia and Thailand.

With a coalition of over 60 investors

Result: Per Yahoo Finance/Reuters reporting on the following year's repeat vote, the 2023 version of this proposal 'was rejected by nearly 80%' of votes cast; the proposal did not pass. A repeat proposal was voted down again in 2024; we could not confirm the exact 2024 percentage from the sources retrieved.

We found no documented change in Nike's supply-chain labor agreements or practices as a result of this campaign.

Nike shareholders vote against proposal on workers' rights, Reuters (via Yahoo Finance)

Figure 8 Investment Strategies at TJX Companies☆ Follow2023 · shareholder resolution

Asked TJX to adopt and publicly disclose a policy letting all employees, part-time and full-time, accrue paid sick leave usable after a reasonable probationary period, with no expiration date or pandemic-only condition.

Result: 22.29% of votes were in favor at the June 6, 2023 annual meeting; the proposal did not pass.

We found no documented change to TJX's sick leave policy following this vote.

Paid sick leave at TJX COMPANIES, INC., PRI Collaboration Platform

New York State Common Retirement Fund at Activision Blizzard, Inc.☆ Follow2022 · shareholder resolution

The proposal asked Activision Blizzard to publish an annual public report on the effectiveness of its efforts to reduce workplace discrimination, harassment, and abuse, including settlement figures and pending case data.

Result: Approved by shareholders at the June 2022 annual meeting despite the board's recommendation to vote against it; proxy advisors ISS and Glass Lewis both endorsed the proposal.

Activision Blizzard published a transparency report in 2023 disclosing 114 harassment, discrimination, or retaliation reports received in 2022, of which 29 were substantiated, along with more than 36 corrective actions taken.

Activision Blizzard shareholders approve proposal for report on abuse and harassment, CNBC

Domini Impact Investments at Amazon☆ Follow2022 · shareholder resolution

Asked Amazon's board to commission an independent third-party audit of how productivity quotas and surveillance practices affect injury and turnover rates among warehouse workers.

With three unnamed co-filers, per source

Result: Amazon petitioned the SEC to exclude the proposal, arguing it involved ordinary business operations. The sources reviewed did not confirm the SEC's ruling or a final vote result.

We found no documented change to Amazon's productivity-quota or warehouse surveillance practices attributed to this proposal in the sources reviewed.

Investors, regulators, Congress focus on companies' treatment of workers, Roll Call

Trillium Asset Management at CVS Health, Target Corporation, Kroger☆ Follow2022 · shareholder resolution

Asked each retailer to make the paid sick leave benefit it had offered during the pandemic a permanent policy for all employees.

Result: CVS Health asked the SEC for permission to leave the proposal off its ballot. The sources reviewed did not confirm that Target, Kroger, or TJX took similar action.

We found no documented company in this group that adopted a permanent paid sick leave policy specifically attributed to this campaign in the sources reviewed.

Activist investors push retailers to strengthen sick leave policies, Axios

United Church Funds at Amazon☆ Follow2022 · shareholder resolution

Asked Amazon's board to establish paid sick leave for all employees, arguing the company could afford it.

Result: Amazon reported that shareholders voted against every resolution on the ballot at its May 25, 2022 annual meeting. The sources reviewed did not include the exact vote percentage for this specific proposal.

We found no documented company-wide paid sick leave policy adopted by Amazon that any source attributes to this proposal.

The 2022 Amazon Proposals, ICCR

American Baptist Home Mission Society at Tyson Foods☆ Follow2021 · shareholder resolution

Asked Tyson's board to prepare a report on human rights due diligence, covering whether the company was doing enough on paid sick leave, COVID-19 testing and case counts, workload, and meaningful engagement with workers after over 12,500 workers were infected and dozens died during the pandemic.

With 22 co-filing institutional and faith-based investors

Result: Sources disagree on the exact figure. Investor Advocates for Social Justice reported the proposal won 78.7% support among independent (non-Tyson-family) shares but only 18.4% of total votes cast, because the Tyson family's Class B supervoting shares give it majority voting control regardless of other shareholders. PR Newswire separately reported 'nearly 82 percent' support among independent shareholders for a package of proposals that included this one plus a lobbying-disclosure resolution.

Investor Advocates for Social Justice reported that Tyson 'largely failed to engage meaningfully,' did not address the concerns raised, withheld preliminary vote results at the meeting, and gave no opportunity for questions; the annual meeting lasted less than 30 minutes. We found no documented policy change at Tyson attributable to this vote.

Tyson Dismisses Shareholders' Human Rights Concerns at Annual Meeting, Investor Advocates for Social Justice

Asked each company's board to report on the feasibility of making paid sick leave a standard employee benefit beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

With As You Sow, CtW Investment Group, ICCR members

Result: Filed in December 2020 for the 2021 proxy season at seven companies. The sources reviewed did not confirm individual vote outcomes.

We found no documented company in this group that adopted permanent paid sick leave specifically attributed to this campaign in the sources reviewed.

As Covid Spikes, Investors Press for Paid Sick Leave for Frontline Retail and Food Workers, ICCR

n/a (multi-organization coalition sign-on, not a shareholder resolution vote) at Tyson Foods☆ Follow2020 · investor statement

A coalition of over 120 organizations demanded Tyson Foods provide personal protective equipment, paid sick leave, slower slaughter-line speeds, comprehensive COVID-19 testing, physical distancing, protection from retaliation for workers who organize, and elimination of a punitive attendance point system, after over 8,500 workers across 37 facilities tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 25 died.

With Friends of the Earth, HEAL Food Alliance, The Humane League, Venceremos, 120+ other organizations

Result: This was a public pressure campaign and sign-on letter directed partly at Tyson's institutional investors, not a shareholder resolution put to a vote.

We found no documented company-wide policy change directly attributed to this July 2020 campaign; continued investor dissatisfaction with Tyson's response is documented in the February 2021 shareholder vote listed separately above.

120+ organizations target meatpacking giant Tyson Foods for failing to protect workers from Covid-19, Friends of the Earth

AFL-CIO / Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) at Mondelez International (Nabisco)☆ Follow2016 · shareholder resolution

Mondelez had already decided to move about 600 Nabisco factory jobs from Chicago's South Side to Salinas, Mexico. At the company's May 2017 annual meeting, the AFL-CIO's shareholder proposal asked the board to set up a joint labor-management committee to look at alternatives to plant closings in the future.

Result: Vote percentage not found in the sources retrieved for this research; the proposal was raised and voted on at the May 17, 2017 annual meeting. Filed under SEC Rule 14a-8.

we found no documented change: the relocation to Salinas, Mexico proceeded as planned; no source retrieved shows Mondelez reversing the move or adopting the requested labor-management committee.

Offshoring of Oreo-Maker Jobs Dominates Mondelez Shareholder Meeting, AFL-CIO

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How this rating was made

Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.

  • Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
  • Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
  • Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
  • Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.

The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.

How we score dependency, in full.