Complaint mechanism

What complaint mechanism do we have for our employees?

Content:
A company can have a negative impact on the human rights of its employees, including those who are not part of the company's core workforce.
This is the case, for example, if:

• A company neglects occupational health and safety, exposing workers to risks that could violate the right to physical integrity;
• Employees are punished for freedom of assembly
• Employees are discriminated against, for example on the basis of their origin, their age, their sexuality or their religion and thus the prohibition of discrimination is disregarded;
• Temporary workers are exploited by excessively long working hours, missing, incomplete or inadequate wage payments and they are denied fair working conditions.

As we have our own fully integrated production facility here in Germany, many of these obligations to protect our employees and to respect their rights, including human rights, are already anchored in various sections of German private law, such as the General Equal Treatment Act (AAG), the Labor Protection Act (ArbSchG), the Works Constitution Act (BetrVG) or the Working Hours Act (ArbZG).
In addition, we have firmly anchored a so-called “code of conduct including complaints contact” in our employment contracts. This can be done orally or in writing.
If there are complaints regarding human rights of employees, it is clearly defined how they are dealt with: These are taken seriously and recorded.

• The contact person enters into an exchange with potentially affected persons and checks whether measures are necessary.
• If a complaint is justified, the contact person will take care of countermeasures for the future as well as redress.
• The employee or complainant concerned cannot expect any negative effects from a complaint.

To date (as of January 1, 2021) we have not received any complaints in this regard.

We want to extend this complaint mechanism to our upstream and ingredient suppliers in the near future.