Key Aspects of Barrick’s Human Rights Policy
- Any employee implicated in human rights violations will face disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.
- All employees and contractors have a duty to report any suspected misconduct.
- Any employee who knows or suspects but fails to report a human rights violation may face discipline up to and including termination.
- Any employee who misleads or hinders investigators inquiring into human rights violations or serious criminal acts may face termination.
- Any contractor implicated in human rights violations, or who fails to report human rights abuse allegations or criminal acts may face termination.
- The company will conduct training of relevant employees, ensure training of relevant contractors, perform relevant background checks, audit and assess aspects of compliance with the Policy, seek to remediate negative human rights impacts where they occur and report on its human rights program.
Barrick is committed to fair employment practices and a workplace in which all individuals are treated with dignity and respect.
Human Rights
Barrick seeks to operate according to the highest ethical principles, with ample respect for all stakeholders. Barrick demands the same from its employees, affiliates, suppliers, contractors and partners. Ensuring that we, and all who represent us or work on our behalf, respect the human rights of all who are impacted by our operations is a significant priority. To help ensure that we meet that priority, since 2010, we have been developing a comprehensive, global human rights compliance program. Among the recent actions have been a new Human Rights Policy, adopted in mid-2011, a global human rights training initiative, planned human rights certifications ensuring compliance with our standards, new procedures to support our Human Rights Policy, conducting human rights assessments at our sites and advanced projects, and other efforts. The Policy extends across numerous functional units and across all of Barrick’s operations and applies to employees on- or off-duty. We also are participants in a number of multi-lateral initiatives, including the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (the Voluntary Principles).
Barrick explores and operates in places in the world where our employees and assets must be protected from various security threats. Security challenges vary greatly by location. To address these challenges, we developed a global Security Policy and a comprehensive Security Management System. Although for several years we adhered to the Voluntary Principles, in 2010 we joined the initiative, providing a forum for us to engage with leading NGOs, companies and governments in areas related to security and human rights. We believe that effective security controls, standards, policies, and procedures contribute to the safety and protection of employees as well as the communities in which we operate.
We employ security staff or retain security contractors to protect our employees, products and company assets at most of our operations. At locations in developing countries where security risks are often elevated, we may employ or contract with a significant number of public or private security officers. Effective security is a combination of physical security measures and strong community support. Competent security personnel play an essential role in these areas.
Before employing or contracting security personnel, background checks are done; this is often challenging where central records are not held or not reliable. As part of our security system, all security employees and security contractor personnel are instructed in relevant human rights norms and the Voluntary Principles, and the company’s commitment to adhere to them; this includes undertaking specific human rights training approved by Barrick.
We have categorized our operations according to the security risk in the region. Procedures, infrastructure and protective equipment are employed to different extents at different operations, based on the security threats. In some instances, security personnel may carry defensive weapons or use trained dogs to provide protection. Barrick has focused on the use of less-than-lethal munitions as a part of its security approach at most locations. All security managers and security officers who carry firearms have received specific training on human rights, the Voluntary Principles and Barrick’s Use of Force Procedure which is aligned with the United Nations Guidelines for the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (as required by the Voluntary Principles). Personnel who carry firearms are required to be trained in, and sign off on, this procedure on an annual basis.
Security and human rights issues at our North Mara mine in Tanzania and our Porgera mine in PNG, and the actions taken by us to address these, are explained in more detail in Significant Community Issues.
Barrick developed a Supplier Code of Ethics (the Code) which was implemented in 2008. The Code is designed to help suppliers understand the business and ethical standards they should follow in any business dealings with, or on behalf of, Barrick. In all business dealings with Barrick, we expect that suppliers shall comply with the principles of the UN Global Compact which address human rights and anti-corruption, along with all applicable local laws and the suppliers own code of ethics policy. We are developing processes to ensure suppliers meet our requirements. We encourage our suppliers to self-certify to our Code. By the end of 2011, 64.7 percent of our significant suppliers, comprising 80 percent of spend, had self-certified or were in the process of certifying with our Supplier Code of Ethics. A number of suppliers who have not self-certified have their own robust ethical codes.
In the past decade, human rights has become a prominent issue within the field of corporate social responsibility for many sectors, including the mining industry. With employment issues in particular, there are many aspects of good practice. Among the various employment-related human rights issues, we focus in this report on training, equality of wages, freedom of association, preventing child and forced labour, support for diversity and women’s role in mining.
Discrimination involves the act of treating a person unequally on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, nationality or social origin. At Barrick, we believe that every individual must be accorded equal treatment and that everyone in the company is responsible for ensuring that the workplace is free from all forms of discrimination, harassment and retaliation.
The company is committed to fair employment practices and a workplace in which all individuals are treated with dignity and respect. We will not tolerate discrimination. The company expects that all relationships among employees in the workplace will be professional and free of bias and harassment. We are committed to ensuring that both the letter and the spirit of the law are recognized with respect to promoting equal opportunity in the workplace and ensuring all people (both employees and potential employees) are treated based on their merit.
Merit is the basis upon which decisions affecting employment and career development are made. The fundamental criteria are work performance, qualifications, competence, abilities, skills, knowledge and experience relevant to the job.
Any employee, supervisor, or manager who is found, after appropriate investigation, to have engaged in unlawful discrimination, victimization or harassment of another employee will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action, which, depending on the circumstances, may include dismissal. In all cases, the action will be designed to ensure that there is no repetition of the conduct.
A diverse workforce encourages creativity and innovation. We draw our workforce from many countries around the world, including each country where we operate, with the result that our global workforce is extremely diverse in terms of national and ethnic backgrounds. However, we are committed to the localization of our workforce. To this end, we first recruit the bulk of candidates for employment from the local and regional areas near our operations before searching further afield. In 2011, the number of expatriates at our operations varied regionally, but globally they represented just over four and a half percent of our employees. Senior executives in our corporate offices are recruited from all our regions. By bringing together women and men from diverse backgrounds and giving each person the opportunity to contribute his or her skills, experience and perspectives, we believe we are able to deliver the best solutions to our challenges.
Barrick sponsored an event in Perth celebrating the achievements of women in the resource sector.
The workforce in the mining industry is predominantly male, and many women see this as a barrier to gaining employment in the industry. At Barrick, our focus is to employ the best person for the job; to choose people on merit. Our objective is to ensure that we are welcoming to women so that we can employ the best among a wide candidate base. We continue to introduce policies and flexible work practices to encourage higher participation rates of women in the workforce. Currently, 11.5 percent of our employees are female. At the end of 2011, approximately 18 percent of our executive positions were held by women, including four vice presidents, two mine general managers and one woman on the senior leadership team.
We consider men and women equally in our search for new employees, and both sexes are encouraged to apply in all job categories. Men and women employed in the same job category receive the same remuneration, according to their level of experience and length of employment. However, there may be a gender bias that is predominant in different labour categories. For example, outdoor manual labour may have a higher hourly pay than inside office workers and there may be a bias of males in the first category and females in the second. Where this is so, there may be a perceived gender bias in salary. However, this more correctly reflects a gender bias in the choice of work categories rather than in the rates of pay.
Barrick respects employees’ rights of association and collective bargaining. This includes the right of each individual employee to join a union or other labour association. We have a number of facilities around the world with unions or bargaining associations. In 2011, approximately 26 percent of our employees, from 15 properties, were covered by collective bargaining agreements. Of these, approximately 75 percent are located in Tanzania and South America.
Child labour is employment of children that is economically exploitive, likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or likely to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. The legal age at which young people may work varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Barrick does not knowingly employ a person who is under the legal age of employment, or where that employment would contravene the IFC definition of child labour. Barrick’s minimum age for employment is 18; therefore, there are no significant risks concerning the employment of children at any of our operations.
Our most significant contributions to the effective abolition of child labour are our global investments in education, such as our partnerships with Life Education, Australia and the Public Education Foundation in Nevada, and our community infrastructure development projects that support schools, community centers and recreational areas.
Forced and compulsory labour is all work or service, not voluntarily performed, which is extracted from an individual under threat of force or penalty. This includes bonded or indentured labour, slavery or similar coerced labour arrangements. Barrick does not engage in any type of forced or compulsory labour at any of our operations.
Barrick has a global human rights compliance program which includes mandatory human rights training for certain employees, contractors and suppliers. Training employees on human rights issues can help to raise general internal understanding as to why such issues may be relevant to our business and also to ensure that our employees implement and support our specific human rights policy and procedures. Focused human rights training is commencing at our sites in 2011.