Response from Puma

"We have been involved in various projects such as the JO-IN Initiative in Turkey and a pilot project of the German Roundtable on Codes of Conduct in Romania and Bulgaria, wherein freedom of association was addressed and local as well as international unions actively participated. Though these projects are broad and innovative, the results of the initiatives still need to be adjusted to the local specifications and cultural context of other sourcing countries in order to be effective. Our current work on the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) collaboration as mentioned above is at this stage.

"We are often reminded that we are not the appropriate party to provide worker education on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and in accordance with the recommendations of the ILO, our suppliers are not tasked with this in the interest of impartiality and fairness. Given that the trade union movement in major sourcing countries is immature according to international union standards, we are not inclined to enforce mandatory access to our suppliers to these kinds of unions for worker education purposes. However, we continue to support training from credible NGOs and international industrial relations organizations in Romania, China and in a number of other countries."