Employee rights
Our objectives
Heineken wants to assure compliance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and more specifically with the provisions that govern the rights of its employees.
Our strategy
The Heineken Value and Business Principles make reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and contain provisions on some of the most important employee rights. In addition, Heineken is a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact. As is the case with most of the provisions of our Business Principles, they need to be further elaborated into policies. Heineken aims to have an Employee Rights policy adopted in 2008.
Since 2003, we have been measuring the operating companies’ performance on employee rights through or annual Opco Survey. These measurements provide us with valuable insights on areas such as child labour and employee representation. The most important findings are reported publicly in our Sustainability Data Sheet. We believe that operating companies themselves should be responsible for upholding the rights of their employees. They should assess their own practice and evaluate whether they act in compliance with international legal standards, such as the ILO conventions.
Activities in 2007
In recent years, we have discussed some elementary principles of employee rights with our European Works Council. In 2007, we evaluated the results of these discussions and concluded that the draft policies we had discussed did not cover all aspects of employee rights. Therefore, we re-drafted the document which is now the subject of internal review and comment.
In the summer, we engaged in dialogue with the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) in relation to a labour dispute at one of our business locations in Russia. After an active and open dialogue between the IUF, Heineken Group and our top management in Russia, a plan was developed that should lead to a better mutual understanding between the local trade unions and local managers who are responsible for the contacts with employee representatives. Joint training of union representatives and local managers is the cornerstone of this plan.
What we will do in 2008
- Finalise and publish our employee rights policy and plan the roll-out
- Actively promote the use of the Quick Scan of the Human Rights Compliance Assessment tool by our operating companies
- Respond adequately to potential incidents, ensuring a solution that is in line with the international conventions covering this issue.