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UNI Global Union joins with other international organisations and NGOs in urging the Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) to exclude Daewoo International for profiting from forced labour.

Six months after receiving a complaint that NBIM’s holdings of Daewoo International supports forced labor, Norway’s National Contact Point (NCP) for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) closed the complaint without further examination.

Following Norway’s decision to ignore the issue of forced labour in Uzbekistan, UNI joins with the Cotton Campaign, Korean Transnational Corporation Watch and Anti-Slavery International, in calling on NBIM to make its own decision and add Daewoo and its parent company Posco to NBIM’s list of companies excluded from investment consideration due to human rights violations.

The decision by Norway’s NCP not to pursue this complaint is unwelcome and goes against a groundswell of opinion in Norway supporting more responsible investment. Only last month Norway’s government announced it will draft a human rights pillar for NBIM which manages the €880bn Norwegian Government Pension Fund. The move follows a number of complaints against NBIM under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises for investing in companies allegedly responsible for workers’ rights abuses.

UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings said, “This is a regrettable decision by the Norwegian contact point and a backward step on human rights. They are ignoring the advice from the OECD that minority shareholdings also bring responsibilities to ensure that the investment is not contributing to adverse human rights consequences. The Norwegian NCP is defying this advice and taking a hardline which is contributing to unfortunate investment decisions continuing at NBIM.”

Jennings addressed a hearing at the Norwegian Parliament in May this year and pushed strongly for a human rights dimension as central to the Fund’s responsible investment policy.