Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
关于人权与劳动的观念 社会与村田 CSR活动内容 关于村田 株式会社 村田制作所
关于村田制作所，介绍关于人权与劳动的观念
/favicon.ico
Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
Human rights due diligence initiatives

Murata implements a PDCA cycle, identifying and evaluating, preventing and mitigating, monitoring, and disclosing any negative impact in line with the methods described in the United Nations “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.”

Identification and evaluation of negative impact

(1) Identification of human rights risks in fiscal 2020

In fiscal 2020, we undertook an impact assessment, advised by the external experts at LRQA Sustainability K.K.’s, to identify Murata’s human rights risks.

The assessment covered the following divisions: Capacitor Division, EMI Division, High-Frequency Device Division, Communication Module Division, Power Module Division, Functional Devices Division, Batteries Division, Digital Promotion Department, IoT Business Promotion Department, Medical and Healthcare Equipment Group

These represent almost the full range of Murata’s businesses. We held interviews with a broad range of stakeholders about these businesses and evaluated their risks.

Interviews were held with the following stakeholders: persons responsible for each division, persons responsible for procurement, Murata’s four plants in China, Murata’s six plants in the ASEAN region, and Murata’s seven plants in Japan.

As a result of these discussions, we identified the following risks for Murata:

Among these, we identified the following high-priority risks: 1) Forced labor (especially toward foreign workers, minority ethnic groups, and student workers), 2) Long working hours, and 3) Occupational accidents.

Murata procures components and materials and engages in production at multiple proprietary plants.

We see our priority tasks as mitigating the identified human rights impact of our own plant operations and working to improve issues at our suppliers and the plants we outsource to.

< Most prominent human rights risks > Examples of anticipated negative impact Insufficient or unpaid wages and subsistence wages

Insufficient or unpaid wages, or the failure to pay living wage or minimum wage

Rewriting contracts or failing to provide social security, welfare, allowances, etc.

Failure to ensure equal pay for equal work

Excessive or unfair working hours

Overtime work or continuous work exceeding statutory limits, restrictions on the use of leave (paid leave, maternity leave, etc.), or insufficient information provided to employees regarding leave

Work shifts based on the assumption of overtime work

Overtime work perceived as normal based on local customs

Failure to ensure a sufficient number of rest days for safe and healthy work

Occupational safety and health

Detrimental physical and psychological effects from workplace accidents and other issues due to inadequate safety and health environments

Failure to provide opportunities for disaster drills and emergency action drills

Failure to ensure thorough implementation of SDS training

No personal protective equipment (PPE) provided

The right to social security

Limited social security due to an unstable employment system

Lack of understanding of each country’s social security system among foreign migrant workers

Harassment

Lack of consideration for diversity and minorities

Damage to working environments from factors such as sexual harassment, power harassment, maternity harassment, paternity harassment, nursing harassment, etc.

Harassment due to prejudice against employees of foreign nationality and migrant workers

Forced labor

Forcing workers to labor, falsification or non-fulfillment of employment contracts

Demanding fees from workers upon recruitment

Violating the freedom to change living location

Violating the freedom to change jobs

Human trafficking

Freedom of association and collective bargaining

Enforcing participation or non-participation in labor unions or inappropriately handling labor-management negotiations

Freedom of foreign workers

Limitations on the freedom of workers through the retention of passports or other identification documents by the employer

Insufficient understanding of labor conditions

Insufficient consultation points available to foreign workers

Lack of availability of employment rules, etc. in workers’ native language or a language they can understand

Incomplete awareness of foreign workers (migrants, minority ethnic groups, etc.) within the supply chain

Indebted labor due to advances (travel expenses, etc.) paid by the employer

Lack of reasonable consideration for religion or customs

Child labor

Impediment of learning opportunities for children or violation of their health or safety

Inappropriate recruitment due to insufficient checking of the age of job applicants

Nighttime or holiday work by young workers (under the age of 18), or other work that risks damaging their health or safety

Human rights related to technology and AI

Discriminatory recruitment activities or personnel management using AI

Human rights violations through the unintended use of Murata products by customers

Privacy rights

Leaking of personal information, sensitive personal information, and other private information

Acquisition of personal information, sensitive personal information, and other private information through inappropriate means

Use for purposes other than those for which consent has been obtained

Right of consumers to safety and knowledge

Causing detrimental physical or psychological effects from the use of Murata products

Causing concern or detrimental effects due to the lack of widespread provision of necessary information (substances and materials used in products, etc.)

Discrimination

Limiting recruitment to specific groups

Discriminatory recruitment through information requirements for resumes, such as photographs, gender, etc.

Discriminatory recruitment through pregnancy testing for foreign migrant workers before traveling to take up employment

Rights of indigenous peoples and local residents

Forcing local residents to move away from the area due to business activities

Deterioration in living environments due to pollution, traffic congestion, etc.

Negative impacts on the lives, culture, or religion of indigenous peoples and local residents

Human rights issues in the supply chain

Human rights violations in the supply chain

Business activities that encourage human rights violations by suppliers or are directly linked to such violations

The use of conflict minerals

The right to access help

Inadequate grievance mechanism (language issues, insufficient assurance of anonymity, and process flaws)

Potential human rights risk mapping

(2) Evaluation of human rights impact for fiscal 2023 (direct dialogue with rights holders)

In 2023, given the effect of COVID-19, we conducted local surveys with the cooperation of The Global Alliance for Sustainable Supply Chain (ASSC).

The business locations surveyed by ASSC and an overview of the survey results are presented below.

We are implementing measures to address the matters indicated in the survey.

Evaluation of human rights impact at MURATA ELECTRONICS SINGAPORE (PTE.) LTD. (October 2023)

This is one of Murata’s own overseas manufacturing bases, with an extremely high proportion of migrant workers.

It comprises two plants: the long-established MLCC business base and battery business base acquired in 2017.

ASSC checked on-site safety and health, and conducted interviews with migrant workers from China and workers commuting from Malaysia.

< Overview of the survey results >

It was confirmed that the labor and living environment was explained to workers in detail during the recruitment process.

It was confirmed that fees were not charged to workers at the time of recruitment.

From a labor safety perspective, it was pointed out that emergency evacuation routes should be presented in multiple languages and evacuation drills should be enhanced to ensure that all employees are fully prepared.

Evaluation of human rights impact at Izumo Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (November 2023)

This is one of Murata’s main MLCC production bases in Japan and has a high proportion of indirectly employed workers, including foreign workers. ASSC therefore conducted discussions with our partner companies and interviews with the employees of partner companies.

< Overview of the survey results >

It was confirmed that environmental measures had been taken to ensure a safe working environment.

Insufficient knowledge dissemination was indicated among employees at some partner companies regarding the rules for transitioning from fixed-term contract workers to regular workers.

Evaluation of human rights impact at Tohoku Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (December 2023)

This large manufacturing base was acquired through M&A in 2017. We have continuously enhanced Murata’s safety and health environment, and this survey examined the actual situation from the perspective of the workers.

< Overview of the survey results >

It was confirmed that a safety and disaster prevention system has been established and occupational accidents have been mitigated.

The need was indicated to clarify the equipment inspection record and improve transparency, including open access to the inspection record, to further enhance workers’ safety.

Link: Human Rights Impact Assessment Report 2023

In addition to implementing systems and mechanisms to reduce risk, we believe that it is important to train our employees whenever necessary. Toward that end, we have implemented various measures to prevent harassment, such as conducting annual harassment training for members of management and any employees that are responsible for managing a team.

Since fiscal 2019, we have been using e-learning to provide all employees with annual training on our Human Rights and Labor Policies as well as on harassment of all types (including sexual harassment, workplace bullying, and SOGI* harassment). We have also been spreading awareness of our reporting service, in order to help prevent harassment. We treat these as valuable opportunities for managers and all other employees to recognize how important it is to prevent harassment. We also include temporary employees and contract employees in these efforts, with the cooperation of their companies.

We also conduct CSR-related training including human rights topics, and have established first-response guidelines on what to do if harassment may have occurred at a workplace.

We implement punishments based on disciplinary regulations if workers receive discrimination and harassments, and make public announcements based on the policy (without disclosing personal information that may aid in identification).

SOGI: Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity

e-learning General training Manager training New employee training Consolidated

(domestic) 97.5% 97.8% - Murata

Manufacturing

Co., Ltd. 98.7% 97.4% 99.1%

Employees only: New employee training only for sites that conduct e-learning, as e-learning is required only at some sites

Lecture meeting

A total of 250 individuals attended a human rights lecture meeting held online for domestic employees in fiscal 2022, on the topic of "Business and human rights - Considering the connections between human rights and business/work at Murata Manufacturing." During the lecture, Professor Sugawara from Osaka University of Economics and Law covered various topics including what is required of companies based on the basic concept of human rights.

Participants also attended a workshop tailored for circumstances at Murata, in which they exchanged opinions and became aware of how perspectives varied from person to person.

A questionnaire was given after the lecture meeting to gather feedback from participants. Based on this feedback, participants felt that it would also have been a good opportunity for members of management to learn, that they realized how important it is to learn about human rights, and that they wanted to take what they had learned about human rights and apply it directly to future issues at manufacturing sites. This suggest that participants themselves will take the initiative to expand their learning.

In fiscal 2023, about 170 participants attended “Business and human rights - Considering the connections between human rights and business/work,” targeting human rights officers.

This lecture meeting for human rights officers invited Professor Sugawara from the Osaka University of Economics and Law to give a lecture on more specialized content, as a response to requests for more detailed information compared to the lecture meeting held in fiscal 2022 for Murata employees in Japan.

Opened by Professor Sugawara’s question, “What right of whom?,” the lecture covered human rights in business settings from a global perspective, using guides for small-to-medium enterprises in EU.

This year’s meeting was held in a hybrid style, both online and face-to-face, where participants were able to deepen their knowledge by directly exchanging opinions with Professor Sugawara or communicating with each other.

Professor Sugawara also gave the lecture in English for participants from offices outside of Japan.

In the questionnaire after the lecture meeting, the following comments were given:

The lecture covered an extensive range of examples, including those from a global perspective and subjects that we see in actual life situations, which enabled us to think about human rights as something familiar and relevant. It was a very meaningful lecture.

・The explanations were very relatable and easy to understand. The lecture meeting became a good opportunity to have the officers think about human rights in connection with their work.

This lecture focused on global trends and the basic concept of human rights. In future lectures, I would like to hear more about how Murata thinks about human rights and what Murata is doing on a company-wide basis in relation to human rights. Opportunities for participant discussion would also be appreciated.

I could understood more, because of example of human right that related to work. Even recently we do on tract but at this time I could recognize more clearly, how activity relate to Human rights.

Most participants are engaging in human rights-related work in their everyday operations, and we believe that they could apply what they learned to their work based on the feeling of agreement of this lecture.

While this lecture meeting had many participants whose work is directly involved with human rights, there are possibly many other employees who may handle human rights issues in their day-to-day work outside of their regular responsibilities.

We will consider increasing the participation of such employees.

Within Murata

Even outside the range of legal compliance, Murata is making efforts to establish corrections for long work hours.

Worker fatigue can result in reduced productivity, increased turnover, and increased potential for injury and illness. We are working to reduce risks associated with overworking by providing employees with healthy lifestyles, both physically and mentally.

For example, we consider engineers working long hours to be a human rights issue, and Murata Manufacturing management is working with labor to improve and correct issues based on the labor-management agreement signed with the labor union.

For example, we established a cooperative labor and management body for discussion between labor union members, business divisions, and the HR Department. We currently monitor business plan progress and working hours every quarter, in order to prevent engineers from working long hours during busy periods in important businesses.

As a result, we were able to reduce engineer overtime in applicable departments in fiscal 2021 to 84% of that in the previous year.

We continue to monitor working hours, and take measures if any increase in overtime is discovered, such as having discussions between labor and management.

In fiscal 2021, we increased paid leave for all employees by three days (Up to 23 days), in order to help reduce overall working hours.

Together with partner companies

We at Murata believe that forced labor or any other human rights violations should not happen to any of our own workers or those working on the supply chain.

Notably, we have staffing and employment agencies that employ or handle foreign laborers agree to Murata’s Human Rights and Labor Policies. We also use SAQs, audits, and other measures to watch out for forced labor.

We conduct human rights and harassment prevention training through our partner companies, and have a system in place to share information on any comments, reports, or complaints regarding human rights or harassment, in order to ensure understanding and agreement with Murata's view of human rights.

We also promote processes to verify compliance with our policies and identify any potential human rights risks. Corrections are made upon our business partners’ cooperation for any cases that require correction.

Through these initiatives, we have discovered that the level of awareness for systems including maternity leave and childcare leave for foreign workers in Japan was insufficient. Even though they were capable of acquiring them, some workers did not know that they could be acquired at all. We have achieved familiarization by having business partners review education content to prevent similar cases from happening.

Additionally, we found that an agent recruiting foreign workers for our overseas factories had received deposits from workers to prevent them from canceling their travel. To prevent recurrence of this issue, we urged the agent to stop taking deposits from workers, and at the same time, interviewed the hired workers.

Link: Human Rights and Labor Policies

Link: EHS disaster prevention policy

Together with local residents and other rights-holders

As stated in our basic policy on social and local community contribution activities, Murata hopes to continue to be "a company whose presence in local communities is a source of pride and joy to those communities as well as a company that our employees are proud and happy to work for." We consider our local communities and their residents to be important stakeholders, and promote various initiatives with this in mind.

One such initiative is that we strive to consider the impact on local communities while actively conducting local hiring to create employment in local communities.

We also provide periodic opportunities to exchange opinions with everyone in the local community in order to avoid human rights issues and other problems arising from Murata factories. If we receive complaints, we use these as opportunities for discussion. These also serve as opportunities for communication in order to prevent and correct any issues that might have a negative impact.

Due to the increase in foreign workers at Murata, we dispatch Japanese language instructors to elementary schools and donate supplies for Japanese language education, to make it easier for these workers to coexist with local communities. Since we have a lot of Japanese-Brazilian workers, we also support the endowment of Portuguese language courses at local universities and donate Portuguese books to nearby libraries. At Fukui Murata Manufacturing, we are currently conducting Portuguese language lessons for employees. This has become an ambitious undertaking, with the number of employees wanting to participate exceeding the class capacity. After participating, some participants have even indicated that they intend to start greeting their coworkers in Portuguese right away!

It has become especially difficult to provide foreign workers with enough information during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to language barriers. Factors such as lifestyle differences could make it even more difficult to communicate and reach a mutual understanding with members of the local community.

In response, we employed a grievance mechanism in the form of meetings to exchange opinions in local communities, in order to obtain feedback from members of the local community. We also worked with business partners on efforts such as sharing information in workers' native languages and approaching local stores and other businesses subject to restrictions under a state of emergency.

We hope that such initiatives will lead to more active communication between our employees and foreign workers. We will continue our efforts to prevent discrimination by respecting diversity and promoting mutual understanding.

We are also promoting consideration for human rights when new worksites are constructed or worksites are expanded by conducting a variety of assessments and considering our impact on the regional environment.

Link: Coexistence with society and local communities

We are working to create a workplace environment and personnel system free from discrimination, in line with the tenets of the “Human Rights and Labor” section of our CSR Charter.

We will respect the human rights of every individual and respond with dignity.

We will prohibit forced labor, and will not permit any child labor be involved in any of our processes.

We are completely uninvolved in human trafficking. We have confirmed that there is no risk of human trafficking in any of our processes.

We comply with laws and regulations. We have also received no warnings from supervisory authorities with regard to major violations of the Labor Standards Act.

We are working to go beyond the standards stipulated by law for working hours, holidays, rest periods, and minimum wage.

Employees are thoroughly informed about wage structures and personnel systems, and wages are paid regularly in full and on time. Also, deductions are detailed in pay stubs.

In accordance with the laws of each country in which we are involved, we will respect the right of free association and the right of workers to join labor unions, etc. and we will facilitate free communication between workers and unions. Moreover, even in countries and regions where the formation of labor unions is not allowed under the laws, etc. of each country, we strive to promote problem-solving through dialog between labor and management, which is the objective of executing the rights appended to the freedom of association and labor unions, etc. The union participation rate of each union belonging to the Murata Manufacturing Group Labor Union Association is 82.5% (As of March 31, 2024).

In consultation with labor unions and employee representatives, we pay the wages necessary to maintain a standard of living.

We do not discriminate against women in our personnel system, including the wage system. Regarding the issue of equal pay for equal work, we respect and comply with locally applied laws.

We strive to reduce overwork so that employees may lead a life which is mentally and physically healthy.

We conduct visiting classes so that foreign immigrant workers will properly understand their rights.

We do not charge fees, security deposits, or any other kind of money, regardless of the means or under any name. If any such fees are found to have been paid by workers, such fees shall be repaid to the worker. Using audits and other procedures, we confirm that these policies are also being followed by our recruitment agencies, contractors, and supply chains.

Based on Murata’s philosophy of Equity, we take reasonable accommodation for recruitment, wages, promotions, remunerations, and education training. (Example: Applying subtitles during promotion selections for employees with hearing impairments, etc.)

During the last 12 months, there were not any public demonstrations, protests, or adverse media reports involving your facility’s operations or business conduct.

In addition, in order to boost our employees’ awareness of human rights, we have translated our Human Rights and Labor Policies from Japanese to both English and Chinese, and are conducting human rights education as part of our stratified education programs. Our investigation was unable to find any incidents involving child labor or forced labor in any of our business sites or plants, including overseas.

To abolish child labor, we have identification check during employment. for preventions.

Comparison between standard minimum wage versus regional minimum wage (Murata Manufacturing)

Regional minimum wage 156,761 yen Standard minimum wage 184,500 yen Percentage of regional minimum wage 118%

* Value for major manufacturing sites. Not an average.

* As of March 31, 2024