Akademikerpension is divesting DKK 22bn (EUR 3bn) worth of shares in Wizz Air, a budget airline based in Hungary.

This comes after the airline refused to recognize workers’ rights to organize and right to engage in collective bargaining in a number of countries including Norway.

Wizz Air has also been found to have engaged in discriminatory behavior and have treated employees differently based on their union membership status.

Akademikerpension has tried to engage with the company, but this has not ended well.

”After dialog with company leadership, we are in no way reassured that they will implement the changes we have demanded – on the contrary. We therefore see no other way to move forward other than excluding the company,” says CEO at the pension fund Jens Munch Holst.

Too risky

In the run up to the exclusion, Akademikerpension and asset manager Ardevora Asset Management attempted to contact Wizz Air’s leadership and demand change.

However, it was only when the issue made it into the press that the company leaders agreed to meet.

According to Akademikerpension, the leaders were not willing to change their behavior, and this has let the pension fund to draw a line in the sand and sell its shares.

”The activities of the company leadership are verging on undermining human and employee rights as set out in the UN’s guiding principles for human rights and industry. The risk of being connected to a company that is in clear, ongoing violation of our responsible investment policy is far too high,” Munch Holst says about the exclusion.

Wizz Air did not wish to comment on the exclusion.

(This article was provided by our Danish sister media, MobilityWatch.dk)

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