CSR

[ISO 26000 Core Subject] Human Rights and Labour Practices

We are fostering occupational safety and health activities across the Group based on the Fujikura Group Basic Principles for Safety and Health, which states "Safety is the basis of our business operations."

In fiscal 2013, we worked to achieve zero labor accidents, attributing importance to passing down the culture of safety, complying with the safety rules and enhancing employees' safety awareness. Specifically, management and all employees made a concerted effort for safety focusing on (1) encouragement of safety patrols; (2) enhancement of occupational safety and health education and training; (3) improvement of KY (risk detection) activities; and (4) steady implementation of the 5S activity. As a result, we were able to decrease the number of labor accidents within the Fujikura Group by two year on year.
To further reduce occupational safety risks, in fiscal 2009 we began to study what kind of occupational safety and health management system we should build. We actually launched one in fiscal 2010 mainly targeting the occupational safety and health plans made and implemented at each site of Fujikura Ltd. In fiscal 2013, we held briefings on the management system for future introduction of the system to Group companies across Japan.

As the activities for fiscal 2013 started, a message on safety was dispatched to all Group companies under the name of the president of Fujikura Ltd. In the message, the president insisted on the upmost importance of safety as the basis for all corporate activities and introduced the safety slogan and specific activity items for the fiscal year.

FETL and FATL received Gold and Silver prizes at the Zero Accident Campaign 2013 held by the Thai Ministry of Labour. The Ministry annually gives prizes to companies that have long achieved zero lost time accidents or no labor accidents. The occupational safety and health efforts made by the Fujikura Group in Thailand resulted in the commendation by the government.

Gold prize winners: N1, L1 and P1 Factories of FETL, and FATL

Silver prize winners: N2 Factory of FETL

At the beginning of a new fiscal year and during the national safety week, all employees attend a safety meeting held at their sites, where the head of the site announces the site's commitment to ensuring safety and to raising employees' safety awareness. In particular during the national safety week, directors visit the sites to read out the President's message to employees and ask them to ensure a safer working environment.

Indentifying invisible risks and implementing improvements helps create a safe working environment. Based on this recognition, we work to find out and assess any risks and hazards and so eliminate potential risks in the workplace. This process also helps raise the safety awareness of individual employees.

To raise individual employee's awareness of risks and prevent human errors, we incorporate KY (kiken yochi) risk prediction training into the small-group activities conducted daily at our workplaces. In the training, employees discuss how to identify and deal with potential risks in their daily business operations.

Using reference materials on behavior that might cause safety risks while working, we provide employees with one-to-one education at our workplaces. As a follow-up, our health and safety staff visit the workplace to check on the effectiveness of the education and provide advice as required.

Based on the idea that employee health is one of its most important management resources, the management, employees and the corporate health insurance society of the Fujikura Group are united in their activities for promoting health and preventing diseases. The Group changed its attitude to employee health from responding to sickness to proactively helping all employees, including healthy ones, maintain their health and prevent diseases. In order to help individual employees become more aware of their health and promote it further, the Group has been preparing a range of health promotion and disease prevention programs. Specifically, the Group classifies employees into "high risk," "medium risk," "low risk" and "healthy" categories according to their physical checkup results and other data and provides all employees, not only those classified into the high risk category, with health promotion and disease prevention programs to deal with their health risks. Those in the high risk category, who already have serious health problems, are provided with the programs to help them prevent the further aggravation of the diseases and improve their health situations. Employees who are in the medium risk category and have symptoms of aggravation are provided with relevant information, including campaign calls. Employees who are in the low risk category but drink a lot and might suffer liver problems are encouraged to participate in a group activity to cut down on their drinking. Moreover, healthy employees, who seem to have no health problems, are encouraged to participate in events such as a walking rally held by the Group and individually provided with useful health information. In fiscal 2013, we completed a firm-wide health promotion system by updating the system implemented in some geographical areas on a trial basis in fiscal 2012. Following the completion of this system, we founded the Health Management Promotion Division, an in-house organization responsible for the development and implementation of health promotion and disease prevention programs, within the Human Resource & General Affairs Division in January 2014.

In the Group's health promotion and disease prevention activities, employees are classified according to their health risks and provided with programs made for their risk categories. This helps employees recognize what health situations they are in and allows them to choose the programs suitable for their own situations. Specifically, based on the regular health checkup results, employees who show symptoms of preventable diseases are identified and asked whether they have already received treatment at medical facilities or not. All the information thus obtained is analyzed, and individual employees are classified into "high risk," "medium risk," "low risk" and "healthy" categories according to the urgency and gravity of any complaints, and are subdivided into groups by disease within each category. Then the Group decides on the measures to support employees' health according to their risk categories and groups, in consideration of the cost effectiveness of the disease prevention measures to be implemented for each category and group.

TABLE FOR TWO (TFT) is a social contribution activity initiated in Japan by the NPO named TABLE FOR TWO International with a view to reducing the imbalance between developing countries facing the problems of starvation and malnutrition, and developed countries suffering the problems of obesity and lifestyle-related diseases. When employees buy a healthy lunch meal provided under the TFT program, 20 yen will be donated through the TFT secretariat to developing countries to provide local children with school lunches. It is said that a lunch can be offered to a school child at the cost of 20 yen, and so employees can donate a meal to a child every time they buy a meal for themselves under the program.

In fiscal 2009, we began to examine the introduction of an occupational safety and health management system (OSHMS) in order to conduct occupational safety and health activities continuously in an organized manner, and have actively been introducing this system since fiscal 2010. Since then, each site has been monitoring progress, reviewing details, and raising member awareness of the system. In fiscal 2011, we executed a PDCA cycle to implement additional measures for the system. At present, we are working to introduce this system across the Fujikura Group.

As one of the many traffic safety week activities, our sites hold traffic safety seminars for employees, inviting traffic officers from local police departments as lecturers. Participants in these seminars raise their awareness of traffic safety by listening to the lecturers, watching DVDs and gaining experience from "virtual traffic accidents." The seminars help increase the safety awareness of employees who drive during their commute to work or for their business operations.

Based on the lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake, sites of Fujikura Ltd. and Group companies conduct emergency drills against the Nankai Trough large earthquakes and inland earthquakes in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which are predicted to occur in the near future. Each site has its own disaster scenario made in consideration of its geographic features and provides employees with necessary drills to teach them effective evacuation methods and other knowhow. The sites will conduct these drills regularly, deeming it essential to continue the drills for disaster control.

At the head office of Fujikura Ltd., a simulation drill was conducted with the participation of all members of the Management Committee, assuming the simultaneous occurrence of the Tokai and Nankai earthquakes. Participating directors took the following steps in the drill, aiming to share the principles on emergency responses among all the directors and establish a system to allow any of them to play a leading role at the emergency response headquarters in the event of a disaster.

This simulation drill is conducted every year.

On October 15, 2013, a simulation drill was conducted at the head office of Fujikura Ltd., assuming the simultaneous occurrence of the Tokai and Nankai earthquakes with a magnitude of 8 on the Richter scale. Based on this assumption, the Fujikura Group's emergency response headquarters was established to deal with the issues of life saving and business continuity and to improve the Group's abilities to respond to emergencies and contingencies. At the end of this drill, an expert evaluated the results of the simulation and participants checked the improvements to be made to improve business continuity plans (BCPs).

On September 19, 2013, before the aforementioned simulation, an emergency drill was also conducted at the head office assuming the occurrence of an earthquake in the north of Tokyo Bay and damage caused to the head office. Based on this assumption, the head office emergency response headquarters was established and the all employee safety confirmation system was tested.

Subsequently, on October 18 of the same year, all departments of Fujikura Ltd. and affiliated companies in the head office district participated in an evacuation and first-aid drill.

It is predicted that mega-quakes will occur in the near future, such as the Nankai Trough earthquakes and inland earthquakes in the Tokyo metropolitan area. In the event of a large earthquake, elevators will be urgently stopped and become unusable. In such an event, it will be necessary to help people with physical disabilities, those who have difficulty in walking and the injured evacuate down stairs from the higher floors of a building to outside.

On October 15, 2013, the head office held a seminar on the use of a wheelchair for evacuation down stairs as part of the disaster control drill, so that employees will be able to help people with physical disabilities and those who are unable to walk independently evacuate down stairs safely to outside. Employees representing each office floor participated in the seminar and were briefed on the use, and then took turns to actually practice how to use a wheelchair for evacuation down stairs.

On September 20, 2013, the Sakura Plant held an emergency drill in preparation against predicted mega-quakes. The drill was composed of an evacuation drill by the entire plant and the voluntary drills conducted separately by individual departments.

In the voluntary drills, 35 departments of the plant individually conducted drills to deal with the issues they face, receiving support from members of the local fire department, such as drills to learn how to deal with smoke, use a fire hydrant and an AED, give first aid to and transport victims, use sandbags, and install a portable toilet.

Each and every employee needs to increase their awareness of the importance of disaster control, and the drill certainly helped all employees of the plant to increase their awareness of making better preparations against disasters.

On October 11, 2013, the Suzuka Plant held a comprehensive emergency drill against a mega-quake. In the drill, all employees of the plant took the following steps: primary evacuation, secondary evacuation, reporting to the headquarters, and quickly gathering to the place for tertiary evacuation. They also practiced how to give first aid to the injured and use a fire extinguisher, and jointly conducted a water discharge exercise with members of the local Suzuka City fire department. Participants were made to realize again the importance of being daily committed to disaster control.

On September 19, 2013, the Numazu Plant held a drill against the Tokai earthquake, which is predicted to occur in the near future, and a tsunami that might be caused by the quake. The plant is located 8.5 meters above sea level. In consideration of this fact, the drill was conducted with the participation of 180 employees, assuming that a large tsunami warning was issued while they were making initial responses to the earthquake, such as preventing the occurrence of fires and secondary damage to local communities.

The Ishioka Plant conducted an emergency drill against a mega-quake on September 6, 2013 in the heat of late summer under the supervision of the local Ishioka fire department. Participants practiced how to make notifications, evacuate, save victims, and use a fire hydrant and a fire extinguisher in the drill. In this 11th drill conducted by the plant, participating employees behaved very promptly. At the end of the drill, they were highly evaluated by the fire department and encouraged to repeat drills so that they could follow the necessary procedures automatically.

DDK conducted a disaster control drill against a mega-quake that might occur in the near future, assuming the occurrence of an earthquake with the seismic intensity of 6 and trembling lasting for two minutes. Employees participating in the drill seriously practiced how to evacuate, being aware of the high possibility of the occurrence of a mega-quake. After the evacuation drill, they also learned how to use a fire extinguisher, and the in-house firefighting team practiced how to discharge water.

On September 12, 2013, Nishi Nippon Electric Wire & Cable conducted a drill assuming the occurrence of an earthquake with the seismic intensity of 5 upper. The Nankai Trough earthquakes* are predicted to occur in the near future with the magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale. The company is located near the Nankai Trough, which extends from Suruga Bay to the east coast of Kyushu, and the predicted large earthquakes will cause serious damage to a wide range of areas. Employees therefore seriously practiced how to evacuate, discharge water, and use a fire extinguisher in the drill. They also had a virtual experience of an earthquake with the seismic intensity of 7 in the simulator vehicle of the local Oita fire department. The terrifying experience helped increase their disaster awareness.