Re: Agenda item 3: Discharge of the Management Board
The Association of Ethical Shareholders Germany proposes that the Board of Management of Brenntag SE be denied discharge.
Reason:
The Management Board is failing to fulfil its human rights and social responsibilities towards
its own employees.
Labour rights: Contradiction between human rights obligations and practice
Brenntag’s conduct in its US business operations stands in stark contradiction to its own corporate guidelines and human rights declaration. There, under point 2 (‘Freedom of association, right to collective bargaining’), Brenntag expressly undertakes to respect the right of employees ‘to join or not to join a trade union or employee representative body of
their choice without threat or intimidation’, as well as to recognise the right to collective bargaining and to ensure that employee representatives are neither disadvantaged nor favoured.
This stands in contrast to the practice documented by the US trade union Teamsters, whereby employees active in trade union activities have repeatedly been temporarily excluded from their work. Such so-called “lockouts” are deliberately used as a means of pressure in ongoing collective bargaining negotiations, including by Brenntag. This deliberately deprives employees of their economic livelihood in order to enforce below-average or disadvantageous contractual or working conditions for employees in negotiations with trade unions.
A concrete example of this is the case at Brenntag Great Lakes in Iowa, USA: Teamsters members were abruptly locked out in February 2026 after rejecting a contract offer they considered inadequate. This lockout lasted 35 days and led to a total of 60 days of industrial action, including a strike over unfair labour practices. Only then was a new collective
agreement reached.
Such a course of action involving lockouts clearly constitutes significant pressure, intimidation and discrimination against unionised employees. For us, such a course of action is incompatible both with internationally recognised labour and human rights standards and with Brenntag’s own commitment to ensuring that collective bargaining and union
involvement are free from intimidation and discrimination.
The use of lockouts not only undermines trust between staff and management, but also causes lasting damage to the credibility of the company’s own human rights commitments. When a company disregards its own principles
in practice, responsible corporate governance becomes mere rhetoric.
