If you hold Ansell shares you can easily fulfill your daily duty to do some good. While small shareholders certainly can’t control a company, they certainly can get companies to improve their supply chains. Today, we’re asking Ansell shareholders to join together to improve the integrity of this iconic Australian company’s supply chain.
Ansell has once again been “accused of using an overseas supplier that has allegedly exploited more than 200 factory workers — including through forced labour,” for the supply of its disposable gloves. Similar accusations surfaced in 2018 and 2022.
This time, 220 Bangladeshi migrant workers at a Malayisan supplier have allegedly been subject to forced labour conditions, including debt bondage, withheld wages, crowded and indecent living quarters, and confiscated passports. Furthermore, these workers claim they have faced deportation in retaliation for raising their voices.
The Ansell AGM will be held in October, and a coalition of doctors, nurses, shareholders and workers’ rights advocates is seeking to put forward resolutions to compel stronger action against modern slavery from inside the company. To garner a vote on the resolutions at the AGM, we need a minimum of 100 shareholders in support to put the resolution forward.
As an Ansell shareholder, your voice is crucial to put this issue on the agenda.
The resolutions seek to compel Ansell to comprehensively remediate the most recent victims of forced labour in its supply chain, and for the company to improve its human rights due diligence processes to ensure this doesn’t keep happening.
Human Rights Due Diligence is a decade-old international corporate human rights standard from both the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises, further elaborated in the OECD Guidance on Responsible Business Conduct. Human Rights Due Diligence means companies must effectively identify, prevent, mitigate, and redress human and environmental abuses throughout their global value chains. This standard has been law for French multinationals since 2017, German multinationals since 2021, and the entirety of the EU since 2025.
Australia’s modern slavery commissioner has also called for such laws in Australia, in addition to a growing coalition of Australian investors, NGOs, churches and forced labour survivors. The third resolution therefore advises the Ansell board to also publicly endorse the strengthening of the Australian Modern Slavery Act, from a mere voluntary reporting regime, to a bona fide human rights due diligence law. The logic here is that Ansell can mitigate reputational damage by now becoming a champion of action on modern-day slavery.
In 2022, after revelations led to the US government banning imports of gloves from an Ansell supplier due to forced labor concerns, Ansell’s share price plunged almost 15%. So addressing our concerns isn’t just good sense; it is also good business.
We can make a real-world difference with our money if we get engaged and support those seeking to make a change where it’s invested. Forced labour is horrendous and it destroys lives.
If we reach a critical mass of interested shareholders, we’ll need supporters to share their shareholder HIN number with those sponsoring the resolutions in order for them to be able to put the resolutions forward. If that’s something you can get behind, then please express your support via this form. If we reach critical mass, we’ll subsequently request your HIN number, so we can put through the resolutions together.
Thank you for supporting vulnerable workers; you can make a real difference in their lives through this simple action.
Disclosure: The author of this article Chris Patz owns shares in Ansell and will not trade those shares for at least 2 days following this article. This article is not intended to form the basis of an investment decision. Any statements that are advice under the law are general advice only. The author has not considered your investment objectives or personal situation. Any advice is authorised by Claude Walker (AR 1297632), Authorised Representative of Ethical Investment Advisers Pty Ltd (ABN 26108175819) (AFSL 276544).
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