Our policies are steadfast in opposing child labour, discrimination, non-freedom of association, and forced labour. These policies extend not only to our employees but also to our customers, contractors, suppliers, and all other third-party business associates.
Human rights violations, if any, are arbitrated by a committee made up of cross functional leadership and headed by our Chief Human Resources Officer. The committee periodically reviews and updates our Human Rights policies and practices. They also oversee the organising of awareness programs, trainings, campaigns, workshops, seminars, etc. for various stakeholder groups
To ensure we practice what we learn, regular inspections and surprise audits are conducted at our plants, warehouses, offices, and other strategic third-party locations. With a zero-tolerance approach toward human rights violations, any business partners found guilty face an investigation and may find their association with us permanently terminated
For an individual to report a concern, we have a robust whistle- blower policy and a global grievance mechanism for any stakeholders to raise and resolve issues or potential violations
All our stakeholders can connect via grievance@upl-ltd.com to report any potential or ongoing concerns. We ensure that reporting a concern will have no action or reprisal rebound on the individual raising it.
With Human Rights Assessments and the associated due diligence being sensitive matters, at UPL, we have set in place mechanisms, and regional / international commissions to act on any instances of violation swiftly, and with all necessary confidentiality.
Our assessment methodology involved pre-planning and scoping across major locations of our operations, third parties, and JVs across India and overseas.
Senior management
Cross functional employee in different cadres
Contractor in skilled, semi-skilled & unskilled categories
Security staff
Third party manufacturers
This cross-hierarchy, broad-based information gathering helped us identify and map our Human Rights landscape – i.e. the nature and extent of potential risks linked to our activities. We focused on 8 major aspects of human rights:
Child Labour
Discrimination
The rights of Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining
Fair Remuneration
Fair Working Hours
Occupational Health and Safety
Bonded Labour
Workers’ Involvement and Protection
This consists of:
Strengthening existing procedures and systems
Revising and upgrading existing policies and assessment manuals
Increasing vigilance at every level of the company
Improved internal control measures
Increased proficiency in audits and third-party onboarding
For specific and complicated issues an action plan is devised with a timeline for implementing the recommendations.
Our control systems are interspersed with checkpoints, monitored on a regular basis by selected individuals across our internal and external operations. Human right audits are conducted at operation and third-party sites to monitor the level of policy adoption and verify their compliances to our code and policies. In them we map out:
Locations that have not implemented policies
Locations that have partially implemented the policies
The parameters that are difficult to implement at specific location, and reasons thereof
Respect for human rights is an integral part of our global sustainability strategy and we commit to transparently report on the progress of our efforts in our internal periodic reports, Sustainability Reports and Business Responsibility Reports.
Click here for Child Labour SOP
Click here for Equal Employment Opportunity Policy
Click here for Grievance redressal Policy
Click here for Leave Policy
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