We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or forced/trafficked labour in our supply chains, value chains, or in any part of our business.
Hallmark can confirm that it complies with the Modern Slavery Act 2015; our Policy on Modern Slavery (below) reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.
MODERN SLAVERY POLICY
Hallmark Consumer Services Limited acknowledges we have a responsibility to ensure there is no child labour, forced labour or slavery used anywhere in our business, or by any of our direct suppliers. We are committed to ensuring our practices support the objectives of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It is our policy to demand that our suppliers also ensure that their supply chains, value chains, and business are free of child labour, forced labour, or any form of slavery.
Hallmark is committed to review, determine and implement changes to all necessary processes, procedures, investigations and compliance and validation systems in order to satisfy applicable requirements and ensure that its effectiveness is continually improved to eradicate modern slavery from our supply chain.
We require our suppliers to apply the following standards to ensure there is no slavery or human trafficking:
• Employment is freely chosen
• Permit workers freedom of association and right to collective bargaining
• Eliminate the use of child, forced or coerced labour
• Pay a reasonable living wage with payment on time
• Hours are not excessive
• Health and safety standards are complied with, working conditions are safe and hygienic
• Demonstrate responsible environmental standards
• Not to discriminate in hiring, compensation, access to training, promotion, termination or retirement on any basis
• To provide regular employment as far as possible
• Not to treat employees in any harsh or inhumane way
We also take every precaution to ensure that our approved suppliers carry out their activities in accordance with national laws, regulations, best practices and policies relating to the preservation of the environment and conduct their activities in a manner contributing to the wider goal of a sustainable development.
The only way to achieve and maintain this policy is for every employee, in whatever capacity, to commit to our responsibility to eradicate modern slavery and to monitor his or her work to the highest standards at all times and is included in our Employee Handbook and our induction checks. Current as of September 2024
Child Labour and Modern Slavery – 2023 to 2024
We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern or child slavery, nor any forced, trafficked or indentured labour used in any part of our supply chain. We are also committed to ensuring that the clients we work for do not make use of any labour from these categories either.
Hallmark as a business complies with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and we are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all business relationships.
In order to ensure our suppliers are meeting our ethical standards we have started to conduct on-site audits (as of May 2024) with our top 10 key suppliers. As part of this process we interrogate the supplier over their adherence to labour standards using the below questions:
What are your company policies in relation to:
- Modern Slavery?
- Child Labour?
- Employee Health and Safety?
Please confirm that your organisation operates in compliance with all applicable local, national and international laws relating to: the environmental, health and safety, work-force pay, and labour relations.
During the on-site visits the answers to the above questions are interrogated and confirmed through visual inspection during a site tour.
Because Hallmark makes use of a lot of temporary labour and seasonal workers we will be conducting audit visits with our main casual worker vendors within the next 6 months. The vendors we use have already made commitments to adhering to or exceeding the requirements within Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in their hiring processes, but an on-site visit with them will allow us to do some deeper questioning and interrogation of their working practices.
