We pursue dialog-oriented employee relations throughout the Group and engage in trust-based, constructive collaboration with employee representatives and unions. Our works councils, central works councils, and Group Works Council represent the interests of our employees at our Group in Germany.

Our partner representing the employees’ interests on a European level is the European Works Council (EWC). We also have executive staff representation committees and representatives for people with disbilities at works, company, and Group levels. Even in non-European nations like the United States, all of our employees enjoy the right to form and join labor unions. As the underlying laws and contracts vary from country to country, co-determination matters are managed locally, and always together with trade unions and employees’ representatives. Group management is generally involved in all major issues.  

We have set Group-wide uniform standards for managing employee relations, which have been enshrined in our Guiding Principles, in our Code of Human Rights & Social Principles policy statement, in our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Group Policy, and our Group Policy on Employee Relations. Comprehensive information about compliance with human rights at our Group is provided in the section on “Human rights“ and on a separate page under “Experiencing sustainability”.

Not all of our suppliers offer their employees the option of collective bargaining. This is also the case in our downstream value chain, for example, at recycling companies for electronic scrap. The impact assessment of our materiality analysis showed that in the upstream value chain stages of the global electronics industry, there are only limited opportunities for union representation. We have implemented a comprehensive supplier management system to address risks to human rights in our upstream value chain.