Labor Practices
Management
Our position
It is very important for both companies and society to protect the basic rights of workers.
As a manufacturer with rubber manufacturing plants, Yokohama Rubber has established the Human Resource Policy and Basic Policy Towards Health and Safety, while the Yokohama Rubber Group Action Guidelines stipulate the company's basic policy towards creating safe and healthy workplaces and the actions that should be taken by employees.
Policy
Human Resource Policy of Yokohama Rubber
We will create an environment in accordance with our management policy of creating a workplace to value, improve, and energize people, where each of our ever-diversifying personnel can equip themselves with the necessary skills and perform by utilizing their capabilities to the fullest. Also, we aim to create a workplace where our employees can realize a satisfactory work-life balance.
We also respect work-life balance and aim to create a comfortable workplace for all employees.
In addition, we will place the most suitable personnel for the role to play an active role in realizing the business and technology strategies of YX2023, and we will work to strengthen the level of management personnel.
Basic Philosophy towards Health and Safety
Following the Management Policy “Create a workplace that values, improves and energizes people,” Yokohama Rubber shall consider the safety and health to be the basis for everything, and focus on preventing occupational accidents and creating workplaces comfortable and healthy both physically and mentally.
Yokohama Rubber Group Health and Safety Policy
- Giving top priority to the safety and health, participating by all members and developing globally, whole Yokohama Rubber group will improve the safety and health activities.
- Yokohama Rubber will comply with all laws and regulations related to the safety and health, and take continuous improvement for the safety and health.
- Yokohama Rubber will communicate with stake holders and cooperate with value chains to contribute to the local communities and the society.
- Yokohama Rubber will strengthen the use of the Occupational Safety and Health Management System and repeat the PDCA cycle for continuous improvement.
- Yokohama Rubber will carry out Risk Assessments for the “safety of the equipment” and “establishment of the Standard Operating Procedure” to promote reduction of the risk.
- Being a part of the automotive industry, Yokohama Rubber will take preventive measures against traffic accidents.
- Yokohama Rubber will create the safe and comfortable workplace, and take measures to promote physical and mental health positively.
- Yokohama Rubber will make employees recognize the importance of the safety and the health, and provide education and training for them as required.
- Yokohama Rubber shall publish this policy and make it known to all.
Yokohama Rubber Group Action Guidelines (Excerpt)
We shall create workplaces that are safe and healthy
Yokohama Rubber Group Action Guidelines (established in December 2014)
<Basic stance of the Yokohama Rubber Group>
- We shall not tolerate child labor or compulsory labor at any of our member companies or suppliers.
- We shall respect the rules governing working hours, days off, leave/vacations, minimum wage, and other factors as defined by laws and regulations in host countries and regions (i.e., those where we do business).
- We shall place top priority on the assurance of safety and health in the workplace, and strive to prevent accidents and disasters.
- We shall aim for the growth of all members of the Yokohama Rubber Group through their work, and proactively support their career and capacity development.
- We shall confer with worker representatives in good faith in order to build and maintain sound labor-management relations.
<To put our basic stance into practice — our action>
- We shall be on guard against the supply of labor by children who have not yet reached the employable age prescribed in the laws and regulations of the host countries, not only at member companies of the Yokohama Rubber Group but also at our suppliers.
- Recognizing that all labor must be supplied voluntarily and that all workers should be able to freely quit their jobs, we shall be on guard against the compulsory or forced supply of any labor.
- In order to build workplaces in which safety and health are assured, we shall proactively participate in activities aimed at the improvement and penetration of rules and systems for safety and health.
- We shall obey rules governing safety and health in the workplace and show concern for a good work-life balance.
- In the event of disasters, we shall respond properly, in accordance with the prescribed rules.
- We shall help employees with problems on the job to deal with them in cooperation with concerned personnel instead of treating them as personal worries or difficulties to be handled by those employees alone.
- People who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs shall not be permitted to enter the workplace.
Message from a manager
In order to realize the business and technology strategies of YX2023, we believe it is important to address the challenge of promoting diversity and inclusion. To achieve diversity, we believe it is important to create an environment in which the identity of every individual is respected, and every one can join an organization naturally and give full play to one's abilities. As part of our efforts related to working styles, following the integration of the Head Office and Hiratsuka Factory in March 2023, we introduced a "home office scheme" that allows employees to have offices developed at their homes and do their work there basically. In addition, we opened the Satellite Office, a free-address office with a cafe space, promoting improved communication between our employees including workers using the home office scheme.
As further efforts to realize diversity, we will develop company rules that approve common law partners and same-sex marriage partners of our employees as their spouses. We will continue to work on the creation of a work environment that allows all employees to play active roles more fully. Since all of our activities are based on the health of our employees, we will continue to work on health promotion.
Shingo Ishimitsu
General Manager, Head of HR Department
At all business sites around the world, it is important to ingrain the culture of "creating a safe and comfortable working environment and good health" that Yokohama Rubber has fostered. By preventing the recurrence of disasters and identifying and eradicating latent causes of disasters through safety diagnosis and monitoring the progress, and by conducting activities to eliminate unanticipated risks through conducting risk assessments and providing education programs for each level, we will further improve our workplace from one with zero accidents to the one with zero risks. In addition, we will work on the promotion of mental health through stress checks, environmental improvement by taking measures to deal with hot conditions, enhancement of health checkups, and response to new infectious disease risks, as well as work to cooperate with health insurance associations in order to promote the health of our employees.
Yoshiaki Mori
General Manager, Head of Safety & Health Management Department, Corporate Social Responsibility Division
Vision for FY 2023
- We will become an organization where diverse human resources can give full play to their abilities regardless of age, gender, nationality, etc.
- We will establish a safety culture aiming for zero risks while promoting both physical and mental health.
Employee-employer relationship
Basic position
Yokohama Rubber respects the three labor rights (the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, and the right to act collectively or the right to strike), and strives to maintain a good and trust employee-employer relationship based on collaboration and coordination between labor and management. The labor union and the company deliberate various issues that both of us face by sharing medium-term issues between both labor and management. Not only at opportunities for discussion for the entire company, discussion about labor conditions relating to safety and health, production and sales activities, salaries, and social benefits are also discussed at business sites, some of which are making efforts to improve their labor conditions by incorporating the opinions and requests about their facilities from union members.
(Major labor-management consultations and committees)
- Collective bargaining in spring and autumn
- Central Labor-Management Council meeting (five times a year)
- Regional Labor-Management Council meeting (six times a year)
- Working Hours Committee meeting (12 times a year)
- Health and Welfare Committee meeting (12 times a year)
- Equal Pay for Equal Work Committee meeting (twice a year)
Number of employees joining the labor union
Yokohama Rubber adopts the union shop system, in which an employee automatically becomes a member of the labor union when hired or recruited as a regular worker. All employees except for several employees holding managerial or executive positions are in the union at work.
- Number of the members of the labor union: 5,001
Labor conditions
Yokohama Rubber ensures that employees are informed of their labor conditions including a compensation system, a pay rise system, standards for pay rise, etc. by setting forth them in the company rules, etc. in an effort to secure transparency. Regarding labor conditions newly made in labor-management consultations, both labor and management inform changes in conditions of employees to gain their understanding and support. For overtime work and late-night work, we provide allowances more than what are specified by laws and regulations.
Grievance System for Labor Practices
We have an internal and external (lawyer's firm) hotline for consultation on labor practice-related compliance.
Whistle-blowing system (Compliance Hotline) and Anything Goes Counseling ServicePriority action items to be addressed
Considering the level of impact of business activities and the level of social interest, the following have been established as the important action items to be preferentially addressed by the Yokohama Rubber Group.