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ICL operates under many agreements with diverse contractors in Israel who, as part of their activities, are located within the premises of Company plants. These agreements usually relate to types of work requiring specific expertise, such as security, packing, maintenance, catering and cleaning, etc.
As an Employer of Choice, ICL sees great importance in the well-being of its contractor workers and adopts the highest standard of care. During March 2020, the GEC members decided to simplify and update ICL’s current policy to include the following elements:
In any event, the primary responsibility for the contractor workers’ well-being, safety and working conditions is of the sites’ managers. HR, procurement and other relevant functions provide the sites with support as needed. During 2020 we continued to audit contractor working conditions according to both the new and old policy, to ensure that we continue to provide contractors with the highest standard of care.
Contractors undergo audits by an external auditor
To ascertain that its contractors are in compliance with the labor laws provided by the law and ICL’s requirements, the Company conducts audits carried out by an external auditor engaged by ICL. The process consists of a sample annual examination of contractors’ compliance with the threshold conditions laid out in ICL’s policy appendix.
The appendix also requires the contractor’s auditor to conduct an internal examination of the employment conditions of such contractor’s employees and submit a semi-annual report. The audit is conducted in accordance with standard auditing procedures in order to achieve a reasonable degree of confidence that the data presented does not contain any substantive errors.
The Law for Enhanced Enforcement of Labor Laws, which came into effect in 2013, added another layer, complementary to the fair contractor employment enforcement mechanisms already used by ICL.
As part of the Company’s enforcement plan, ICL audits its contractors who are subject to the Enforcement Law, namely cleaning, catering and security contractors. The audit findings, including details regarding the nature of deficiencies, the names of relevant employees, the scale of deficiencies found, and a request to rectify such deficiencies are conveyed in full to the contractor.
During 2014, two different Expansion Orders were signed by the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Finance. These Expansion Orders add new employment benefits to contract employees of cleaning and security contractors. Some of these benefits had already been included in the contracts with relevant ICL contractors and are already included in the audits performed. Following these orders, ICL incorporated these new benefits into the existing requirements relating to relevant contractors.
