Two New Employee Policies: Labor Rights and Workforce Flexibility

Part of our effort as we have embarked on our ESG journey has been to make explicit those policies and commitments that have always informally characterized the way we operate at Plymouth. Doing so helps clarify for all of us what we can expect and count on from one another, and it allows external stakeholders to more fully understand what our principles and practices are. 

Our company operates as a team, so we designed our labor rights policy to reflect our strong conviction that each of us deserves dignity and fair treatment in our work environment. Consistent with the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and the UN Global Compact’s Labour Principles, our Labor Rights policy makes explicit that: 

• We support employees’ freedom of association and right to collective bargaining
• We oppose all forms of forced labor
• We support preventing and eliminating all child labor
• We are committed to having no discrimination in our employment practices
• We support diversity and equal opportunity

Our full Labor Rights Policy can be found here

We have also formalized our Workforce Flexibility Policy, which affirms that we provide on an individual basis options for employees to create reasonable flexibility in their work schedules, including options for Working From Home, telecommuting, and the possibility of less-than-full-time work. We extend these options to all employees, without discrimination based on individual characteristics or position in the company.

Our full Workforce Flexibility Policy can be found here

Health & Safety

Protecting the health and safety of our employees is our first obligation as a company. We are pleased to report that we achieved a perfect safety record in 2022, with zero accidents or recordable injuries.

Formalizing Our Longstanding Commitment to Human Rights With New Comprehensive Human Rights Policy

We have always been strong advocates for protecting and advancing human rights, but as we began our ESG journey, we wanted to firmly and formally reiterate that commitment. Therefore, in 2022 we made our support of Human Rights even more explicit by developing and ratifying at the Board level a comprehensive Human Rights Policy.

Our policy in its entirety can be found here and it highlights that Plymouth is committed to supporting full Human Rights, not only in our own operations but across all our business activities and with all our suppliers, vendors, contractors, and other relationships. We adhere to and are committed to advancing all the tenets of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We also affirm in our Human Rights policy our commitment to supporting labor rights, occupational health and safety, and all laws regarding child labor, forced labor, freedom of association, and collective bargaining. Beyond this full range of labor rights, we are also committed to providing equal employment and advancement opportunities for all individuals without any discrimination based on age, sex (including pregnancy), gender, race, nationality, color, marital status, civil partnership status, sexual orientation, disability, or religion or beliefs. We are further committed to promoting diversity and inclusion at Plymouth as a matter of policy.

Our Human Rights policy also makes explicit what has long been a fundamental commitment of ours to employee health, safety, and wellbeing, including the right of everyone to have all our work interactions be free from harassment or coercion.

Finally, our Human Rights policy highlights our Whistleblower program that allows anyone to escalate to the Board of Directors any disputes or concerns regarding any potential violations, malpractice, or “reportable” conduct, with independent investigation and monitoring of any such concerns. Under our whistleblower processes, any employee may report any concern without fear of reprisal.