Brown, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, and Warner, who introduced legislation in May that would require companies to report on certain workforce management metrics, said in a letter to Gensler that corporations should note if they use subcontracting workers such as security personnel, janitorial and custodial staff, food service workers and housekeepers as part of their “material workforce.”
That data, along with metrics on health and safety, training, turnover rates and pay, would help inform asset managers and shareholders on how companies they invest in treat their entire workforce, the senators said in the letter. Investors’ decision-making would be “wholly incomplete” without that material information on contractors and other workers.
“In recent decades, companies have replaced in-house operations with contracting, on-demand work, or other forms of independent and contracted work that lower short-term costs for the business but come at the expense of workers, who receive fewer benefits, lower wages, and have less upward mobility within the organization,” Warner and Brown said.
“This is one of the defining tensions that has emerged as companies have prioritized short-term profits at the expense of investments in their workforce and long-term productivity. As you know, these decisions have material effects on a business’ financial performance,” they added.
