HUMAN RIGHTS STATEMENTS

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that over 40 million people are victims of modern slavery across the world. Modern slavery encompasses: human trafficking, slavery, servitude, forced and bonded labour as well as child labour. Modern slavery can affect anyone, regardless of their origin, age or gender. Poverty, discrimination and poor protection of vulnerable groups are factors that can lead to human slavery.

Our rules are clear: All modern forms of slavery are considered zero tolerance issues for PUMA, and embedding human rights one of our sustainability targets.

Therefore, PUMA engages with business partners who share our commitment to uphold the highest labor standards.

If you want to find out more about the steps PUMA has taken to ensure modern slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in its supply chain or its own business, have a look at our Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement or our Sustainability Reports.
 

The Norwegian Transparency act applies to larger enterprises that reside in and offer goods and services in Norway. According to the Transparency Act, a due diligence assessment must be done of the company’s supply chain. 

You can download the results of the assessment carried out for PUMA Norway AS below in English and Norwegian.
 

As an accredited company of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), PUMA supports FLA’s letter shared in August 2023, together with other Multi-Stakeholders Initiatives, which appeals to the Chairman of the Minimum Wage Board to champion local union demands for increases in the minimum wage, which is currently well below the rising cost of living in Bangladesh.

PUMA recognizes that the current legal minimum wage in the Ready-Made Garment sector is significantly below a living wage, the same is reported in our 2022 annual report. “The payments in Bangladesh, despite being above industry average, fall well short of the Global Living Wage Coalition Benchmark and reached 70% of the Global Living Wage Coalition Benchmark (69% in 2020).”

As part of PUMAs efforts to ensure fair wage practices at the factories of our suppliers, PUMA has defined the failure to make a full payment of at least the minimum wage a zero-tolerance issue. This means that to become or remain active PUMA suppliers, companies must pay minimum wages in full compliance with local regulations. Provisions around the payment of overtime hours and social insurance are also clearly articulated in PUMA’s Code of Conduct and are scrutinized regularly based on our Compliance Audit.  

At PUMA, we collect wage data annually from our core Tier 1 factories. We use the Fair Labor Association (FLA)’s Fair Compensation Dashboard to analyze wage data and to compare aggregated and anonymized data from industry peers and, where available, against living wage benchmarks of the Global Living Wage Coalition (GLWC).

As a responsible business partner to our suppliers, we recognize that our own business practices, as well as our trading terms and conditions can have a significant impact on the organization at our suppliers’ factories. The aim of the PUMA Responsible Sourcing Policy is to reduce potential negative impacts. PUMA’s responsible purchasing practice policy was developed in 2019, to create a framework for guiding decisions and maintaining consistency through key principles including the price paid for product to include reasonable labor costs, such as overtime premium payments, social insurance payments and costs to comply with environmental standards.

We recognize the importance of freedom of association and collective bargaining as a key means through which employers, their organizations and trade unions can establish fair wages and working conditions. PUMA respects workers’ rights to Freedom of Association and collective bargaining and requires its suppliers to guarantee the right of their employees to join unions, or other work or industry related associations, and to bargain collectively. PUMA has taken multiple initiatives to ensure Freedom of Association in our supply chain.

PUMA is committed to keep sourcing in Bangladesh and continuing our partnerships with Bangladeshi suppliers in the future.
 

In March 2022, the workers of RA Intertrading denounced the alleged suspensions and dismissals of their colleagues at the company's Buenos Aires plant amid calls to improve salaries to meet the standard of living in Argentina.

RA Intertrading has been accused of maltreatment and threats against workers, as well as gender and labor violence. The company was also accused of increasing production objectives, which put the physical and mental health of workers at risk. Furthermore, workers have called for an end to alleged illegal anti-union attempts, following the dismissal of their two representatives and other workers in an attempt to suppress the right to organize.

Once PUMA learned about the situation, we immediately engaged with the factory management. A Collective Bargaining Agreement on a 48% salary increase was signed in April 2023 between the trade union and the factory management.

Most of the dismissed workers were either re-instated or reached an agreement with the management. A court case is still ongoing for two of them. We followed up with the re-instated worker and he is satisfied with the working conditions.

Through interviews with workers conducted by an independent third-party, we learned that there have been no cases of maltreatment, threats against workers, or gender and labor violence. There was still no sign of such behavior at the factory in early June 2023. The three union leaders representing R.A. workers confirmed there was no discrimination or intimidation against trade unions members.

Through a third party investigation, we could verify that production targets were reasonable to achieve, but the launch of a new style in a production line could initially slow down the production efficiency.

An audit was conducted at this factory in December 2022 and again in April 2023 and none of these findings were identified.

We will keep working with the factory to improve their grievance mechanism and social dialogue internally.
 

PUMA recognizes the unprecedent impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic on our supply chain and workers.

Throughout the pandemic, we have been in close conversations with our manufacturers, customers, landlords, banks and all other partners to find solutions together to ensure that we can sustain the entire value chain. We have worked with both our retail partners and manufacturers to slow down shipments, stretch payments and make sure that we all share the burden across the whole value chain. 

Our supplier were able to release their financial burden through our vendor financing program, a financial support package which was established in 2016. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), banking group BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC offer attractive financing terms to them. 
We acknowledge the importance to follow our responsible purchasing practice policy. We agreed with some suppliers on longer lead times due to the lockdown in some countries. All PUMA orders completed were paid in full. We cancelled very few (less than 1%) orders, for which materials were paid to the manufacturers. PUMA did not ask for discounts on orders.

We have been keeping an open dialogue with our manufacturers to evaluate any risk related to any factory work suspension, workers’ layoffs, wage payments, overtime hours and working conditions. Our direct hotline with workers and organizations representing them all along remained open and any workers concerns were responded and addressed. We have been working closely with the ILO Better Work Program to ensure workers are treated fair and acknowledge the Fair Labor Association guidance. We  closely followed up that any work suspension or retrenchment procedure was paid to workers as per law to workers. PUMA deferred or advanced some orders in a dialogue with our suppliers to make sure they have production in months which were critical for them, so they could maintain as much as possible workers’ employment and wages or rehire previously dismissed workers.

We have guided our manufacturers to follow strictly their respective government instructions to protect workers health. To address the absence of Health instruction in some countries, we shared the International Labor Organization guidelines on prevention and remediation of COVID-19 at work.