Fair Working Conditions and Human Rights
Our employees are crucial to our success. We offer them safe, attractive workplaces with fair pay, and are also mindful of the working conditions of the people in our supply chain.
Our success and our development are built on our employees’ expertise, commitment and passion for logistics. All employees are treated with equal respect and nobody is subject to discrimination. The collectively agreed wages and salaries that we pay are another important cornerstone for ensuring fair working conditions. Beyond this, we also take our social and civic responsibility seriously and consider respect for human rights to be an integral aspect of our corporate behavior.
Employment contracts, wages and salaries
The majority of our employees, at 87.9 percent, hold permanent jobs. Compared with the previous year and in a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic this percentage once again increased slightly by 0.7 percentage points. In the reporting year, 92.1 percent of our employees worked full time. Among those who worked part-time, women made up the largest group with 61.2 percent.
We pay our employees on the basis of the collective agreements applicable in our industry and at the respective locations, or in individual cases at comparable rates. Naturally, the statutory minimum wage applies not only to our own employees, but also to temporary agency workers. In addition, of course, they have the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. In 2020, 98.7 percent of our locations were integrated in a collective wage agreement system.
Employment contract and type
Basis: Germany 9,874 employees (status as of 12/31/2020)
|
Total
in % |
of which male
in % |
of which female
in % |
| Employment contract |
|
|
|
| Permanent |
87.9 |
74.8 |
25.2 |
| Temporary |
12.1 |
68.3 |
31.7 |
| Employment type |
|
|
|
| Full-time (100 %) |
92.1 |
77.1 |
22.9 |
| Part-time (<100 %) |
7.9 |
38.8 |
61.2 |
We take our employees’ needs seriously and help them combine career and family life. Employees who wish to work part-time – for example to look after children or care for relatives – are generally given the opportunity to do so. In around 85 percent of cases we are able to approve their application. For non-tariff employees, we additionally create corresponding possibilities through flexitime models as well as trust-based working hours. Our central departments hold a permanent certificate from berufundfamilie Service GmbH. The aim of the audit is to implement a sustainable family-conscious Human Resources (HR) policy.
Impacts of the coronavirus pandemic
With the start of the first “national lockdown“ in spring 2020, we quickly anticipated a dramatic deterioration in the order situation. The collective bargaining parties reacted quickly and with foresight to this exceptional situation: On April 1, 2020, the collective agreement on short-time work for port employees of German seaport companies came into force and was implemented by the member companies. At the same time, the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations were initially suspended, but were resumed in the fall.
Joint development and practiced codetermination
Automation and digitalization are set to permanently change logistics processes and ultimately the entire logistics business model. In order to remain competitive over the long term, we want to take our employees with us on this journey and manage the changes this entails in a socially acceptable way. For this reason, in February 2020, together with the labor union ver.di, we began discussions in the respective collective bargaining committees on an automation and digitalization collective agreement. Due to the COVID-19-related restrictions, both parties subsequently mutually decided to suspend the talks until the end of the year and to continue them in 2021.
Practiced codetermination has become a firmly established part of our corporate culture. Dialog with our employees and respectful communication with each other are important to us. The basis for this is mutual trust and a strong representation of interests. This is achieved at operational level by the works councils and at Group level by the employee representatives on the Supervisory Board. Exchanges of this nature invariably prove to be highly valuable. Practiced codetermination is especially important whenever the focus is on workplace design, occupational safety and the compatibility of career and family. For example, in response to requests from the workforce, we began introducing new functional work clothing in the reporting year with a high level of wearer comfort. Our staff had the opportunity to test the new models and their feedback played an important part in our decision.
Equal rights for temporary agency workers
In logistics, the order situation is subject to a relatively high degree of fluctuation. This means we are often forced to bring in agency employees to cover capacity fluctuations or very short-term contracts. In Bremen and Bremerhaven, due to our traditional links with the port, our first choice of workers are those from the Central German Seaport Operators (Gesamthafenbetrieb, GHB). These employees are subject to the framework pay agreements agreed for German seaport companies with the ver.di labor union. Naturally, we only use service providers that meet the minimum wage requirements.
