What do I need to know?
- Some of Australia's biggest retail companies are failing to pay their employees paid parental leave.
- Shareholder activism can help push big companies to do better on issues like gender and workers rights.
- In 2024, SIX engaged with retail companies Lovisa Holdings and Premier Investments.
Lovisa Holdings
A big win for Lovisa's 1,656 Australian staff!
The company has confirmed in writing that they have introduced 12 weeks of employer funded paid parental leave for their Australian-based staff.
Going from no paid parental leave up to an above-average amount is a great result that will immediately benefit their thousands of workers.
How did we get there? In 2024, the SIX team contacted jewellery company Lovisa many times to ask if they had plans to provide their employees (of whom over 94% are women) with paid parental leave.
Sometimes a company will try to ignore us and hope we go away, but that's not our style. So when the company didn’t respond to us directly, James (ESG manager) and I headed along to their Annual General Meeting (AGM) in November, to put the question to the board members in person, and in front of all of their shareholders - as shareholders have a right to do.
At the AGM, the company confirmed that they have recently started providing their Australian employees with 12 additional weeks of paid parental leave. They've now followed this up in writing to us as well. We're still waiting on a response around some specific details of their parental leave policy, but it's a great step forward.
Premier Investments
Lovisa wasn't the only big company failing to support their employees with paid parental leave.
Retail company Premier Investments is too - they are the owner of brands like Peter Alexander and Smiggle.
When we questioned chairman Solomon Lew about the company’s lack of employer-funded paid parental leave for their (majority female) employees, the answer was direct but disappointing:
“We do what is required of us by the government.”
After some follow-up questions, SIX understands this to mean that eligible employees are entitled to only what they can get from the government-funded paid parental leave program (which is based on the minimum standard), and that Premier Investments does not provide employer-funded paid parental leave (which the government actually encourages companies to contribute to!) and has no intentions to do so.
Workplace Gender Equality Agency research found that 75% of companies in female-dominated industries provide employer-funded paid parental leave - as do 85% of employers with 5000+ staff. So Premier Investments is a laggard in supporting women.
After the AGM, two directors approached us and acknowledged the importance of the issue. Neither indicated plans to consider this issue further.
They reiterated that Premier Investments focuses on other issues that create a great workplace for women, like ensuring a safe working environment. This took us by surprise, given a safe working environment should be the bare minimum an employer provides for all its employees - not a privilege or added bonus put in place to attract women!
From here, SIX will be reaching out to superannuation funds who we know are concerned about this issue to discuss how we continue to build pressure on Premier Investments to do better by their employees.
Want to learn more?
Check out SIX's explainer on how shareholder activism can help create change.
