Business Principles for Human Rights of Workers in China

May, 1999

As companies doing business in China, we seek to hear and respond to the concerns of workers making our products. We want to ensure that our business practices in China respect basic labor standards defined by the International Labor Organization, and basic human rights defined by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and encoded in the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and Civil and Political Rights, signed by the Chinese government, as well as in China's national laws. To this end, we agree to implement and to promote the following principles in the People's Republic of China:

  1. No goods or products produced within our company-owned facilities or those of our suppliers shall be manufactured by bonded labor, forced labor, within prison camps or as part of reform-through-labor or reeducation-through-labor programs.
  2. Our facilities and suppliers shall provide wages that meet workers' basic needs, and fair and decent working hours, at a minimum adhering to the wage and hour guidelines provided by China's national labor laws and policies.
  3. Our facilities and suppliers shall prohibit the use of corporal punishment, as well as any physical, sexual or verbal abuse or harassment of workers.
  4. Our facilities and suppliers shall use production methods that do not negatively affect the occupational safety and health of workers.
  5. Our facilities and suppliers shall not seek police or military intervention to prevent workers from exercising their rights.
  6. We shall undertake to promote the following freedoms among our employees and the employees of our suppliers: freedom of association and assembly, including the rights to form unions and to bargain collectively; freedom of expression; and freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention.
  7. Employees working in our facilities and those of our suppliers shall not face discrimination in hiring, remuneration or promotion based on age, gender, marital status, pregnancy, ethnicity or region of origin.
  8. Employees working in our facilities and those of our suppliers shall not face discrimination in hiring, remuneration or promotion based on labor, political or religious activity, or on involvement in demonstrations, past records of arrests or internal exile for peaceful protest, or membership in organizations committed to non-violent social or political change.
  9. Our facilities and suppliers shall use environmentally responsible methods of production that have minimum adverse impact on land, air and water quality.
  10. Our facilities and suppliers shall prohibit child labor, at a minimum complying with guidelines on minimum age for employment within China's national labor laws.

We will work cooperatively with human rights organizations both to ensure that our enterprises and suppliers are respecting these principles, and more broadly to promote respect for these principles in China. We will issue an annual statement to the Human Rights for Workers in China Working Group detailing our efforts to uphold these principles and to promote these basic freedoms.