Respuestas de Puma

"We have been involved in various projects such as the JO-IN Initiative in Turkey and a pilot project of the German Roundtable on Codes of Conduct in Romania and Bulgaria, wherein freedom of association was addressed and local as well as international unions actively participated. Though these projects are broad and innovative, the results of the initiatives still need to be adjusted to the local specifications and cultural context of other sourcing countries in order to be effective. Our current work on the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) collaboration as mentioned above is at this stage. "We are often reminded that we are not the appropriate party to provide worker education on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and in accordance with the recommendations of the ILO, our suppliers are not tasked with this in the interest of impartiality and fairness. Given that the trade union movement in major sourcing countries is immature according to international union standards, we are not inclined to enforce mandatory access to our suppliers to these kinds of unions for worker education purposes. However, we continue to support training from credible NGOs and international industrial relations organizations in Romania, China and in a number of other countries."

"In PUMA, we encourage the use of permanent, open-ended contracts. In some countries the full implementation of permanent contracts is a challenge, particularly when it comes to managing workload and workforce in peak and low seasons. We are still working on these issues in cooperation with our local suppliers and other stakeholders such as governments and NGOs. Our long-term relationships with suppliers is advantageous for managing these peaks and valleys. For business reasons, however, such as low demand forecasts, adjustments in order demand will always be necessary and cannot be completely avoided..

Given that labor is only one component of production, labor flexibility remains one of the key components to ensure that individual companies survive and grow. Conditions in the supply chain do not exist in a vacuum, but are affected by local and global economic and social circumstances. We understand that individuals cannot be fully flexible in the global economy; hence PUMA supports legal and extra-legal measures to ensure that worker welfare is addressed. It is guaranteed within PUMA’s Code of Conduct that all worker income must be paid on time and in accordance with local labor law. Each PUMA supplier must provide a copy of a formal working contract to employees and the vast majority of our indirect employees are hired on unlimited-period working contracts to ensure that they have continued access to benefits that accrue over the length of their service. In countries where fixed-term contracts do not impede the accrual of tenure-based benefits or rights, we do not strongly enforce open-ended contracts. We believe that there is no need to do this, as the factories themselves would want to keep their workers who have already acquired certain skills. However, we do investigate against any unlawful termination. We have also strengthened our policies and monitoring regarding apprenticeship schemes and have in fact been able to stop a few cases of questionable apprenticeship programs as part of our compliance auditing routine."

"We are also strengthening our policies on managing factory closures, taking into consideration the guidelines already established by the Fair Labor Association and the MFA (Multi-Fiber-Agreement) Forum. In this regard, the local governing bodies have more power in enforcing the law and we will be working with such bodies wherever we feel it would be most effective."

"Both the VRS and our Strategic Partner concepts ensure that there is an objective basis for purchasing decisions based on equal consideration to price, quality, delivery, compliance and medium- to long-term investment commitment. We are constantly improving the implementation of our VRS and the Strategic Partner concept and we will be reporting on this in greater detail in our upcoming Sustainability Report. In our latest report, we have already provided information on the performance of direct and licensee sourcing in each country."

"While PUMA does not see itself in a position to determine which wage level would be sufficient to provide a “living wage” in over 50 sourcing countries, many of our suppliers already pay on average wages which are well above the minimum wages set by national law. PUMA announced in its 2008 Annual Shareholders Meeting that we increased the prices paid out to strategic suppliers to cover inflationary pressures in some sourcing countries. In turn, some of our Strategic Partners have granted seniority pay in recognition for the workers’ length of service. Some have provided additional cost of living and other allowances and bonuses in recognition of the increased cost of living for workers. A number of these arrangements were accomplished through the enterprise-level collective bargaining process."