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At a meeting of Mediterranean finance unions, Allan Bang presented actions to be undertaken by UNI Finance and its affiliates to respond to the global financial crisis and implement UNI Finance Statement on financial regulation. The statement on financial regulation, adopted in May 2008 by UNI-Europa Finance affiliates, demands that government and financial authorities take action to impose tougher regulation on the financial industry.



In his presentation, Allan Bang showed how the 13 key demands laid out in the statement can be put forward by trade unions and UNI at the company, national and international levels (see attachment).



Actions to be undertaken include:

• Lobbying the European Union for an EU-wide database recording information on funds' managers to increase transparency in the financial sector.
• Working for a single global supervisory and regulatory system and raising critical questions about companies' risk taking in Works Councils to increase regulation and supervision levels.
• Demonstrating the necessity to have stricter rules on capital adequacy.
• Lobbying the European Commission and national legislators to increase transparency in pension funds investments as well as convince pension funds to invest in a long-term perspective and following an ethical approach.
• Lobbying the European Union as well as national governments and legislators to eliminate tax breaks for private equity managers and introduce new taxes on excessive leverage.
• Lobbying the European Union for the establishment of registration and authorisation of management companies and funds' managers (including public disclosure of any fees and other incentives received by directors) as well as put the issue of executives pay compensation on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda and take up this issue in works councils.
• Lobbying for a limit on leverage (debt) levels that can be used in buy-outs by private equity or hedge funds.
• Lobbying the European Union and national governments for the establishment of an independent European credit rating agency as well as require credit rating agencies to only sell ratings to avoid conflict of interest.
• Encouraging international cooperation to crack-down on tax havens and lobbying governments to end excessive banking secrecy.
• Lobbying EU institutions for the introduction of statutory regulation on qualified advice based on the interest of customers, surveying union members' attitude on the issue of sales targets and campaigning along consumer organisations on this issue.
• Lobbying for the inclusion of employees protection measures (included right to be informed and consulted) whenever the control of undertaking or business concerned is transferred by means of a private equity transaction and campaigning to have bonuses linked to the long term interest of the company as well as to include lifelong learning in collective agreements.

For more information, the presentation by Allan Bang is available here:









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