Respuestas de adidas

"At a minimum, we expect our suppliers to recognize and respect FOA rights, to be neutral regarding organizing, and to forego campaigns against union formation. We would not mandate that suppliers sign access agreements, but we would take enforcement action if a local trade union provides us with evidence that a right of access has been denied."

"Based on the findings from our own monitoring, and in response to feedback from the NGO community, union organizations, and workers themselves, in 2006 a supplementary guidance note was developed dealing with contract, temporary and/or casual labour. The standards and practices set out in the guidance note, make it clear that we expect suppliers to comply with local laws and our Employment Guidelines when recruiting workers and signing employment contracts, and that the use of short-term labour should be limited and only used under certain conditions. (Note: this guidance note will also be incorporated into the second edition of the adidas Group Employment Guidelines.) The two underlying principles governing this standard are: "(1) suppliers must not hire workers on a contract basis as a means for depriving such workers of the correct wage and benefits, or other rights and privileges provided to permanent workers; and "(2) suppliers must not hire contract workers on a continuous basis, multiple short-term contracts, or as regular practice, to support normal business needs. "The guidance note referred to directly above states that suppliers may hire contract workers where contract (ie short-term) employment is allowed by law; in cases of unusual or extraordinary circumstances which may result in great financial loss to the supplier if delivery of goods cannot be met on time; or in the event of an unexpected or unusually large volume of orders placed at the factory and the permanent workforce is not sufficient. "If factories use contract workers during peak periods, then the peak season must be clearly defined and this information provided to adidas, ie suppliers should consult with SEA before hiring any contract workers. Additionally, the factory should define the job functions or tasks that contract workers are hired to perform, and maintain information on the use of contract workers in relation to production needs. "The same guidance notes specifically states: 'Contract workers must receive at least the minimum wage or the prevailing industry wage, whichever is higher, and all legally mandated benefits such as social security, other forms of insurance, annual leave and holiday pay.' It also states: 'Factory rules and regulations apply to contract workers the same as to permanent workers.' "The guidance that we have developed on this point does not specify at which point a supplier would be required to automatically hire a worker who has been engaged on a short-term or contract basis. This is mainly because different countries and jurisdictions have adopted their own requirements to protect contact workers. "Nonetheless, the standards set out in the guidance note referred to above, are aimed specifically and preventing suppliers from continuously engaging workers on multiple short-term contracts. "Additional requirements set out in the guidance note are: "• Any local laws governing contract workers must be observed. Where local law is silent on specific aspects of contract employment, at a minimum, contract workers must be provided an employment agreement, setting out the employment terms and conditions. "• Personnel files and all relevant information in relation to contract workers must be maintained and accessible at the factory at all times. If a contract worker is hired on more than one occasion, ie under separate contracts, the worker should retain the same ID number where possible and all information on that worker must be kept in one file. "• Contract workers must be given priority when the factory is seeking ‘new’ permanent employees "• For any contract worker who becomes a permanent employee, seniority and other benefits such as social security entitlements, must be dated from the first date of entry to the factory as a contract worker, and not from the first day of permanent employment, ie all work-related benefits accumulate. "

"In 2006 SEA reviewed and updated our Workplace Standards and supporting policies, including our standard operating procedures for managing factory terminations. This procedure is posted on our Corporate website. We would be happy to review our termination procedures and benchmark these against the guidance offered in the MFA Forum’s Guidelines for Managing Responsible Transitions. Any revisions or updates to our existing procedures following such a review would be re-posted, i.e. made public, on our website."

"We have published our Workplace Standards and associated policies and guidelines. These are accessible on the adidas Group website, under Sustainability. Our recently revised Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the approval of new suppliers is soon to be posted on this site, together with our Enforcement Guideline and our SOP for factory terminations. "We have described the linkages between our sourcing decisions and the compliance performance of our suppliers previously, in our annual Sustainability Reports. These are also to be found on our corporate website. "The following provides amplification. "Sourcing and Supplier Selection: To meet our fiduciary and governance obligations as a business we follow well developed and mature risk management processes. These processes inform and influence our sourcing strategies at a country level. Hence, in order to mitigate geo-political, trade and other business risks, we have established a balanced portfolio of suppliers across multiple sourcing countries. We recognize that some of these sourcing countries do not have independent trade unions, but they have a highly evolved and well established infrastructure for the export of manufactured goods that meet our sourcing needs. "Our process of supplier selection is driven by our Sourcing organization nominating factories that pass technical performance criteria (in particular quality standards). These nominated suppliers are then screened for social compliance. Those that meet our minimum thresholds under our Workplace Standards are approved. Those that fail are rejected, or rejected subject to a second visit to permit remedial actions. We are not involved in comparative exercises, choosing one supplier over another where the selection could then be determined based on the unionized status of the supplier, or any other single factor. "As for retention of suppliers, the reasons for termination of business relationships may be manifold – driven by concerns over technical performance, quality, available capacity, on-time-delivery, financial stability and investment levels, a failure to agree prices, etc. Occasionally, factories are also terminated due to repetitive non-compliances or zero tolerance issues under the Workplace Standards. This however is normally the last resort following extensive engagement and a ‘three strikes’ warning letter system, which calls for remedial action on the part of the supplier. "Order Allocation and Management of Suppliers: Decisions taken on order placements – if we take, for example, our footwear sourcing division - are based on a range of factors, among them the overall market conditions and consumer demand, seasonal fluctuations, supplier performance, product/category mix and the balancing of orders between suppliers to maintain committed fill rates. In evaluating the ongoing performance of a supplier, our Sourcing colleagues refer to the factory Footwear KPI data. "The Footwear KPI data measures a range of parameters including quality, on-time delivery, innovation (R&D) and management commitment. In addition to these factors, the Footwear KPIs contain labour and social compliance parameters, including worker turnover levels, average working hours (cf. targeted levels) and a composite SEA indicator. "The SEA indicator considers six units of measure: "1. Measuring management commitment to the effective delivery of the agreed strategic compliance plan; "2. Measuring supplier management systems for HR and HSE includes an evaluation of certifications for environment and health and safety, development of HR and HSE systems, retention of qualified professionals for those management systems, and internal audit assessments of labour and HSE; "3. Measuring worker management communications and industrial relations focuses on the factory’s ability to resolve disputes, respect forms of worker representation, develop effective grievance procedures and promote sustainable worker-management communications; "4. Measuring the delivery and effectiveness of internal training for factory staff focuses on the process for training needs assessment, the scheduling and execution of training programmes, and the capital investment for training. Trainers are evaluated for skill, knowledge and experience and the factory training records are also reviewed; "5. Measuring transparency in communication and reporting focuses on proactive factory reporting of self-assessment audits and action plan progress. It also scores factories on whether workers are coached, verification of document authenticity, and communication of the Workplace Standards to the workforce and subcontractors; and "6. Measurements for compliance auditing focus on the factory management’s responses to non-compliance. "Please note that the adidas Group has no plans to make public the full workings of our internal sourcing and order placement tools, our supplier rankings, or the individual scores or KPIs contained therein."

“adidas Group will not participate in research which requires the disclosure of confidential price data.”