Inclusive Workplace
Human Rights
USI supports, respects, and is committed to human rights as defined in Principles 1 and 2 in the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the International Labor Organization’s Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, the USI Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and the laws of the countries in which we operate. Being a member of the Responsible Business Alliance, we adopt its Code of Conduct in our global operations to enforce our commitment to protecting human rights.
Our commitment to enforcing human rights protection through these principles:
- Diversity and Anti-discrimination: We respect the diversity of our employees, suppliers, business partners, communities and all other stakeholders. We strictly prohibit any discrimination based on ethnicity, color, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, language, age, nationality, religion, political affiliation, citizenship, ancestry, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, illness or any other characteristics protected by law.
- Respect and Humane Treatment: We are committed to treating people with respect and humanity. It is not tolerated to have any form of disrespectful or inappropriate behaviors in the workplace and work-related environment, including but not limited to sexual harassment, maltreatment, corporal punishment, mockery, insult, discrimination, hatred, derogation, threats, hostile behavior, interference, tracking, mental coercion, and aggression, etc.
- No Forced Labor and Human Trafficking: Being an employer and a global corporate citizen, we firmly forbid any type of forced labor, including human trafficking and illegal employment, and ensure all employment to be built upon the willingness, that means all employees have the right to choose or terminate the employment with the reasonable notice period in compliance with local laws.
- Child Labor and Young Workers: Any form of child labor is strictly prohibited. And there is no tolerance to employ the young workers aged 18 or below to perform any work that could jeopardize their health and safety, including night shifts and overtime.
- Compensation, Benefits and Working Hours: All relevant laws and regulations on salary, social security, working hours, etc. of the country or the jurisdiction where our operations are located are compliance with.
- Safety and Health in the Workplace: We are committed to providing our employees a safe and healthy work environment and striving for with zero injuries and accidents through complying with all applicable health and safety regulations and ensuring all procedures right in place.
- Freedom of Speech and Association: It is fully respected and supported that all employees have the right to freely associate and express their points of view. We are dedicated to build a trust and positive environment where employees can share their concerns or suggestions without fear of interference, intimidation, reprisal, discrimination, or harassment.
- Protection of Privacy: We recognize privacy, as a fundamental human right, shall be protected. Complying with the USI Privacy Policy, we strive for safeguarding personal data privacy and data security.
- Product Responsibility and Conflict-Free Minerals Commitment: We recognize the corporate responsibility for the products covers the entire life cycle from the raw materials used to their use and subsequent cycling. Keeping with USI conflict-free mineral procurement commitments, no metal or product from conflict minerals or areas that violate human rights is purchased or used on USI manufacturing and production. It is also not tolerated that USI products will be used for human rights violation.
Due Diligence
USI understands and manages human right issues in a responsible manner. Adhering to the concepts of PDCA management process and continuous improvement, the task-force teams under the Sustainability Committee will identify, evaluate, monitor, prevent and reduce human rights impacts through the due diligence process.
RBA Risk Assessment Framework
- USI's human rights management focus on our employees and suppliers' that are in our operational process. Through the RBA management mechanism, we implement Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) internally every year and entrust an external third-party agency that has received special training in social and environmental audits to simultaneously provide RBA Validated Audit Process (VAP) auditing services for all USI Facilities or new business relationship companies to do the risk management, that is a two quantifiable indicators risk matrix--frequency and impact. Investigate the results of the risk assessment in the past two years, identify issues and objects that are vulnerable to human rights risks, formulate measures and plans, and continue to make improvement. The survey results are compiled and submitted to the task-forced teams of the Sustainability Committee and reported to the top management at the annual meeting.
- For our joint venture human rights risk assessment, we require joint ventures to conduct human rights risk identification every year. Those human rights risk issues listed in their sustainability reports, or the SAQ human rights risk identification results are necessary to formulate corresponding improvement plans and track their mitigations.
- For the Tier 1 suppliers' human rights risk assessment, we conduct annual human rights risk assessments and further identify their human rights risks through on-site RBA VAP audits to know which supplier might face high risks, and continuously track the effectiveness about their different risk countermeasures.
RBA Human Rights Management Mechanism
- In accordance with the RBA management framework, each facility implements internal and external audits regularly, and arranges cross-site mutual audits every year to ensure full compliance with the regulations. If there are any violations, an improvement plan would be proposed and improved within a requested time period. The Sustainability Committee meets quarterly to review the achievement and improvement of various performance indicators of labor, ethics, environment, safety and health to ensure that the company fulfills various social responsibilities. The company has established investigation mechanisms and complaint channels to ensure the implementation of human rights policies and avoid incidents that endanger human rights. USI has also established employee reporting mechanisms to handle employees' complaint.
Due Diligence Process
Human Rights Risk Mitigation & Remediation
In 2022, all manufacturing facilities got a score above 85 on the SAQ assessment, indicating that all facilities are at low human rights risks. Combining RBA VAP assessment and the employee complaint statistics, we found out that "Working Hours, Wages and Benefits, Sexual Harassment, Sanitation, Food & Housing, Occupational Safety, Emergency Preparedness" are issues prone to exposure risks. We formulate mitigation and remediation to improve them through human rights training to enhance employee's awareness of human rights, review the working hours early warning system mechanism again to strengthen working hour management, recruit a sufficient manpower to reduce overtime, and enhance workplace signage management.
USI continuously pay attention to human rights protection issues, promote relevant trainings, and enhance human rights protection awareness to reduce the possibility of related risks. Every year employees in all Facilities around the world are requested to take "Employee Code of Conduct" and "Humane Treatment in the Workplace" courses to know the definitions and requirements of the proper behaviors, verifying the effectiveness of their training through tests. To strengthen employees' understanding of the human rights issues, we have created many "micro-learning" training videos for employees to learn in their independent fragmented time. In 2022, the per capita human right-related training will be 1.4 hours; the total training hours were 39,707 hours; the total number of trained employees was 29,110 (including resigned employees). 100% of employees have completed human rights training as the training schedule.
Human Rights Training Participant Numbers and Training Hours
USI's human rights policies are implemented as follows:
Employee Rights: Build a workplace that is diverse and inclusive, free from discrimination and harassment, and has equal job opportunities
- Comply with the labor Laws and regulations in the country or jurisdiction where the Facility is located, and sign employment contracts with all employees (the signing rate is 100%). The contract clearly stipulates the rights and obligations of both parties (employee and employer) to protect the rights and interests of both parties. All facilities have formulated employee work rules to ensure that employees are aware of their relevant rights and obligations.
- Each facility has Recruitment Guidelines to define standardized operating procedures to select the most suitable candidates who are willing to serve in USI without discrimination and difference, to attract more diverse talents for the company.
- The purpose of "Measures for Humane Treatment" is to show a workplace culture of safety, dignity, non-discrimination, mutual respect and tolerance, and equal opportunities, and to protect all employees from physical or mental harm while employees conduct their jobs.
Employee union: Respect employees' freedom of association
- Employees who have like-minded or interested partners can independently form associations and can also freely organize and participate in trade unions to conduct collective consultations in accordance with relevant laws and regulations. USI will not interfere in any way with the establishment, operation or management of the trade unions. The Company will maintain a smooth communication channel with the trade union, implement the employment, wage, and termination relevant matters of the group agreement and the regulations on employees' health, safety, and hygiene so that both labor and management can abide by it and develop a stable and harmonious labor relationship. Now, Zhangjiang Facility, Kunshan Facility and Mexico Facility have established their trade unions, and group agreements are signed with the trade unions. Employees participating in the trade union enjoy the protection of the group agreements. The group agreement coverage rate is around 72% (Group agreement coverage rate = Number of trade union members / End-of-period number of employees in the Facility where the trade union had been established X100%). In 2022, with the Company's initiative-taking communication with employees, there was no strike which results from major labor disputes or work stoppages.
Unit | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
No. of Who in Unions | # | 4,435 | 5,900 | 6,350 | 5,901 |
Join Unions Rate | % | 24.0 | 33.7 | 35.1 | 35.4 |
Employee communication: Establish a positive and harmonious labor-management relationship
- USI actively establishes a positive employee relationship and continuously maintain an open, mutual trust, and smooth one / two-way communication environment, so that employees can instantly understand company trends and the workplace-related rights and obligations and protect employee rights and interests. In addition to arranging courses to introduce the channels for employees to express their opinions, the locations of Employee Suggestion Box, and how to fill in the relevant information. We listen to employees' voices by holding regular senior executive seminars, providing instant feedback meetings and channels, conducting questionnaires, and taking practical actions to promote the harmony of labor-management relations. In 2022, there were 140 employee communication seminars in total and vigorously push and disseminate communication messages through various media and strengthen the promotion of information on internal and external reporting and feedback channels when the messages are conveyed. Besides, there were 435 employee suggestions, and 91% of the suggestions have been processed and closed by the end of 2022.