Campaigners braved the wind and wet on Friday to protest against the Greater Manchester Pension Fund.

Assembling outside the building’s HQ in Droylsden they waved flags and placards to raise awareness of their causes and to drive their message home.

Green and political groups protesting outside the building is nothing new, but last Friday saw the Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by Unison and Unite, make their first stand outside the building.

The group is demanding that GMPF divest from companies identified by the United Nations as complicit in denying Palestinian human rights and which are, they say, in some cases in breach of international law.

Anne Webster, from Manchester PSC and Unison, and a member of the pension fund, joined the campaigners and told us: “GMPF pride themselves on their responsible and ethical investment practises and have won awards  - so we are joining with the United Nations in asking them to divest from the seven companies in their portfolio on the UN database.

“This only amounts to three to four per cent of their total investments so it can’t be that difficult to do.

“We are calling on GMPF to show their ethical policies mean something and to divest now.”

Their action coincided with GMPF’s quarterly Management Panel and Advisory Panel meeting held last Friday morning.

Each council in Greater Manchester has a representative on the board with campaigners lobbying individual councillors for the last few weeks

A letter has also been sent to the GMPF by Michael Lynk, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Human rights in the Palestinian Territories.

He has written to the chairs of all the Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) in the country and their national body LGPS Advisory Board urging them to divest in the seven named companies, which, Anne added, have undergone extensive and rigorous engagement by the UN with no result.

Anne added: “The GMPF, which has a very good reputation for responsible investments, need to take note of the information from the UN and divest from those companies.

“It is the first time we have come out as the advisory panel are meeting and as a symbol we thought it would be good and shows the level of interest and support we have.

“We have placards explaining why we are here and people have been very receptive.”

Taking an environmental stand against the pension fund in a one-man crusade and mission is Peter Somerville.

He has been campaigning outside the Droylsden building every Friday since October and plans to continue doing the same for a year - or possibly even two - come rain or shine. However, he is planning on giving himself Christmas Eve off (which this year falls on a Friday).

He certainly couldn’t have picked a wetter day than last Friday as he continues to call for the Fund to stop investing in fossil fuels.

His decision to make a stand on Fridays is a link to Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future inspired movement.

Peter is a member of the Fossil Free Greater Manchester group encouraging the fund to divest from fossil fuels.

“At the moment the Fund has more than a billion pounds invested in fossil fuels,” said Peter. “That’s the biggest amount of any of the public sector pension funds in the UK, so I’d like to see them divest and also much more quickly than they are proposing and we think they should be  able to divest within a couple of years.

“There are other pension funds that have completely divested from fossil fuels and it has not affected them detrimentally at all.

“The Fund is investing in no carbon which is fine and have reduced their investments in fossil fuels, but it’s very, very slow.

“The Fund argue it is their duty to get the best return for members but this is not a valid argument now - even the International energy agency says we shouldn’t be investing more in fossil fuels now.

“Another argument is that they can influence some how by having investments in these companies - and therefore influence how they behave but there is no evidence for this.”

Peter says he is taking his weekly action as ‘a last straw’ stand.

We have asked the Greater Manchester Pension Fund for a response.

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