Human Rights and Labor Practices

The Nidec Group’s Basic Policy on Human Rights

Fundamental philosophy

As a company that realizes the importance of consideration to human rights in a global business environment, Nidec supports “the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,” “the UN Global Compact,” “the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” “the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work,” “Children’s Rights and Business Principles,” and other international guidelines, and promotes group-wide efforts on respecting human rights.

Scope of application

This Policy applies to all executives and regular employees that work for the Nidec Group. We urge our business partners and suppliers to support and comply with the Policy as well, to promote our efforts on respecting human rights in cooperation with them.

Action agenda for human rights

We respect each person’s human rights, and do not discriminate anyone for any reasons. We eliminate forced and child labor, consistently abide by individual countries’ and regions’ labor-related laws and regulations and the spirit thereof, and aim to create a discrimination-free work environment where employees recognize each other’s personality, and respect human rights.

＜Specific action agenda＞

1. Respect for human rights

We respect each person’s human rights, and eliminate any and all kinds of discrimination based on race, nationality, ethnicity or national origin, color of the skin, gender difference, sexual orientation, gender identification, religion, job rank, age, disabilities, pregnancy, marriage history, political party affiliation, labor union membership, etc. In addition, we place importance on a vigorous and diverse working force, and eliminate discrimination in job recruitment, employment, and the workplace, to secure equal opportunity and fairness in employee treatment.

2. No forced labor

We employ all of our employees based on their free will, and do not force them to work against it. Likewise, in our supply chain, we do not tolerate the use of labor force from forced, bonded or slave labor, or human trafficking. In addition, we do not allow anyone to retain, damage, or confiscate any employee’s passport, work permit, other identification certificates, or any other immigration documents, or to refuse reference to such documents by the employee him-/herself.

3. No child labor

We strictly observe local laws and international guidelines on child and young labor. We set our company’s minimum working age to whichever is higher of the one stipulated in such laws, or the one mandated by the International Labour Organization (“ILO”) (15 years old). In addition, we monitor our workplaces to ensure that no workers under age 18 are subject to dangerous, night-time, or overtime work.

4. Proper wages

We satisfy all legal requirements related to employee compensation, including minimum wage, overtime compensation, and statutory benefits. Furthermore, we seek to pay living wages that exceed those requirements. In addition, we do not conduct any illegal or improper disciplinary wage reduction, and, in a timely manner, notice a payment statement that accurately describes detailed information on the compensation for the labor provided by the employee.

5. No harassment

We prohibit, and launch measures to prevent, sexual, power, gender, maternity, childcare, nursing-care-leave, or any other form of harassment, nuisance, abuse, and all the other inhumane treatments against our employees, partner companies, and others.

6. Securing safety and health in the workplace

By working with the company and employees, we secure safety and health for our employees, and aim to create a work environment where they can fully demonstrate their abilities.

7. Work hours and holidays/vacation

We satisfy all legal requirements on overtime work hours and maximum work hours. In addition, we will implement corrective measures if any employee’s weekly work hours, including overtime work hours, should exceed 60 hours chronically. Furthermore, unless otherwise required by local laws, we provide our employees with at least a day off every week, and other statutory annual paid days off.

8. Respect for diversity

We strive to create a work environment where our employees recognize each other’s personality, and where diverse people can demonstrate their abilities through collaboration.

9. Freedom of association and collective bargaining rights

We respect our employees’ rights to form or join a labor union freely, collecting bargaining rights, and rights to attend a peaceful assembly, while respecting their rights not to be involved in such activities as well. In addition, we ensure an environment where our employees or their representatives can exchange their opinions with our company’s management on working conditions and business operations without concern for discrimination, retaliation, intimidation, harassment, etc.

10. Education and training

We constantly hold education and training sessions on various domestic and overseas human rights issues to help all of our executives and regular employees understand this Policy, and entrench it in our group.

11. Information disclosure

We use our official website and other means to properly disclose information on the details and results of our activities on respecting human rights.

12. Remedy and relief

If it becomes clear that our business activity has incurred or encouraged any negative impact on human rights, we will strive to rectify the issue, while building a practical complaint-handling mechanism to enable an appropriate remedy.

13. Dialogue with our stakeholders

We talk and discuss with our various internal and external stakeholders to evolve our efforts based on this Policy.

Established: November 30, 2021
Revised: November 29, 2024
Mitsuya Kishida
Representative Director and President CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
Nidec Corporation

Target

Materiality

Structure and Initiatives

Nidec’s approach to human rights risks

We adhere to the Nidec Group’s Basic Human Rights Policy to uphold international human rights-related guidelines, and make group-wide efforts to promote initiatives to respect human rights. As part of our human rights due diligence process, we: (i) assess impacts on human rights, (ii) discontinue, prevent, and mitigate negative impacts, (iii) monitor human rights, and (iv) disclose relevant information.

1. Assessment of effects on human rights

Nidec evaluates impacts on human rights to identify and assess their negative effects on human rights in relation to the company’s business activities. In FY2023, we launched a self-assessment (SAQ) on human rights on approximately 300 of the Nidec Group’s business bases to identify territories and regions with material risks of such negative effects. For our supply chain, we requested more than 800 of our suppliers in Asia and elsewhere to conduct a human rights SAQ to investigate and assess their current status. Based on the supply chain-related information from the SAQ, we evaluate risks in two categories of: the degree of seriousness of actual negative effects on human rights; and the possibility of their occurrence, to prioritize our actions. Likewise, we identify human rights-related risks in areas outside our supply chain.

For more details on Nidec’s responsibility for its entire supply chain, click here.

2. Stopping, preventing, and alleviating negative impact

Nidec has in place a sustainability promotion committee under immediate supervision of its Board of Directors. Under this committee’s supervision, the company attempts to stop, prevent, and alleviate negative impacts on human rights via activities by the sustainability promotion meeting (chaired by Nidec Corporation’s president) and the human rights subcommittee (that comprises individual departments in charge).

For more details on Nidec’s management system, click here.

In addition, to stop and prevent the occurrence of negative human rights-related impact at our company, we raise awareness of and promote human rights every year in time for International Human Rights Day and Human Rights Week. Since FY2022, we have been holding for our employees e-learning sessions themed on respecting human rights in a company, and compliance seminars on harassment.
Nidec has in place an internal reporting system for our employees to seek relief from actual or potential human-rights violations.

For more details on Nidec’s internal reporting system, click here.

3. Monitoring

Nidec utilizes SAQ, a self-assessment system, to investigate and assess the current status of approximately 300 business bases of the Nidec Group – including those newly established and those that have newly joined us via M&A – and our major suppliers, to rectify and prevent potential human rights risks. In addition, in the Asian region, where more than 70% of Nidec employees work and which is regarded as a high-risk region based on the Global Rights Index of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), we regularly conduct an audit based on our internal standard, which is based on the RBA Code of Conduct*, through a partnership with a third-party certifier. With respect to the human rights of the employees of major production factories in Asia, we strictly check them based on the audit items of the seven aspects including “freely chosen employment,” “young labor,” and “work hours.”

The audit, intended for major production bases in Asia and Southeast Asia, where an especially large number of Nidec employees work, was held a total of 16 times in FY2018 at 11 production plants in China, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Conformance ratio (FY2018)

Based on the audit results, we launched the following improvement actions:

- Produce document on how to prevent problems from recurring.
- Optimize our work hours and wage system.
- Advance the quality of education on how to prevent chemical spills.
- Improve the level of labor sanitation-related knowledge.

In addition, the sites in Thailand, Vietnam, and other countries launched other actions including the examination of measures, such as work automation, to reduce overtime work hours, better anti-disaster measures, preparing policies in local languages, and making safety management procedures and other documents.

*RBA (Responsible Business Alliance) Code of Conduct: A code of conduct, established by the electronics industry, on business activities throughout the supply chain.

Nidec regularly reports these actions on human rights due diligence in its sustainability promotion meeting.

4. Disclosing information

Nidec reports information on its human rights due diligence on its corporate website, integrated report, and securities report for all of our stakeholders to see.

Participating in a business & human rights workshop

Since the fiscal year of 2016, Nidec has been participating in the business and human rights workshop in a subcommittee hosted by the UN Global Compact Network Japan. Nidec strives to promote business- and human rights-friendly project activities though opportunities like the workshop.

Managing working hours

With regard to managing working hours, we continued to consider how to optimize the number of managers in Japan, and we also carried out micro-management of employees’ working hours, and reported and liaised with the relevant parties as appropriate. We also made sure that employees who had reached a certain number of working hours in the middle of the month, and their superiors, were aware of the need to coordinate their work through sufficient communication.