Anniversary AGM 2020 without attendees

The Roche Employees' Association (AVR) was very much looking forward to the anniversary Annual General Meeting (AGM) in March 2020 – but after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, holding the meeting as normal was no longer an option. After a long wait, it was finally decided to organise the 70th AGM without an audience and thus on a very small scale. “Many employees are still working from home. And for retired employees, attendance would have posed an increased risk,” explains AVR President Adnan Tanglay.

Consequently, the anniversary AGM took place in Building 1 on 13 October with only the Executive Committee, one independent auditor and both assistants in attendance (click here for more details). Many site representatives watched the AGM online.

Active members were able to vote in advance via Google Forms, and a total of 1163 Roche employees made use of this possibility. In addition, retired members were able to cast their vote by post, meaning that the AVR received around 1900 votes in total. “In 70 years we have never experienced such a large turnout of AVR members – it’s a new record,” says a pleased Tanglay.

The entire Presidium and the Associate Members were re-elected for the next period of office by an overwhelming majority, with just a handful of votes against and abstentions. Consequently, for a further two years the AVR Executive Committee will consist of Adnan Tanglay as President, Gernot Scharf as Vice President, Andreas Winkler as Treasurer and Robert Gray and Rudolf Vorburger as Associate Members. Michael Tilly was re-elected as Associate Member of the Committee for Kaiseraugst.

The membership fee will not change: it will remain at CHF 20 for active Roche employees. As recommended by the AVR, the proposal submitted by Walter Stamm – requesting that retired members should also pay a membership fee – was rejected with 599 votes for, 1069 votes against and 233 abstentions. “We are pleased about this outcome since – for us – the effort involved would have been greater than the returns,” explains Tanglay.

The minutes of the last AGM as well as the Treasurer’s and Auditors’ Report were also accepted by a large majority. Following this historic number of votes, the AGM came to an end without the traditional drinks reception afterwards.

The Committee is very hopeful that next year’s AGM will take place in its usual format once again.