The palm oil sector in Indonesia provides large employment opportunities, especially within rural communities. With more than 20,000 employees across our operations, we are committed to being a responsible employer and investing to ensure we offer rewarding employment opportunities. This means promoting fair and favourable working conditions, respecting human rights, providing development opportunities for our employees and ensuring a safe working environment. We recognise the International Labour Organization core conventions and the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The majority of our employees work on our plantations and palm oil mills. We strive to employ local people originating from our operational areas. This gives us a better understanding of the local culture and helps us contribute to the growth of the local economy through job creation.


LABOUR AND HUMAN RIGHTS


Equal Opportunities

The Group believes in equal opportunities for all. We offer job opportunities based on competence, skills and experience, regardless of ethnicity, race, religion, or gender. We treat all employees equally and reward them fairly based on merit. However, due to the manual work nature of the plantation activities, our plantation and mill workers are predominately male. While male workers perform heavier physical tasks, like harvesting FFB and carrying them to trucks for transportation to the palm oil mills, women are assigned tasks like weeding, fertilising and collecting loose fruits that have fallen to the ground.


Forced or Compulsory Labour, and Child Labour

In accordance with national labour laws and regulations, the Group does not tolerate forced or bonded labour, or the employment of under-aged workers. For our plantation and mill operations, we ensure that employees are never subject to the unlawful withholding of wages, identification cards, passports of other travel documents. Where we have outsourced our manpower needs to external agencies, we have briefed these middlemen of our policies and practices. We will ceases working with agencies found to be in breach.


Our recruitment policies, work practices and procedures ensure that all employees are above 18 years of age, and that they understand their rights and obligations. It is against First Resources’ policy for children under the national working age to assist their parents in our plantations. We provide day care facilities at the plantations and employees with children are required to leave their children in the day care centres before they enter the plantations. We also put up signboards to remind parents not to bring their children to the plantations, and socialise the importance of education. Constant reminders are sent to all workers and warnings are issues to those who violate our policies.


Freedom of Association and Industrial Relations

The Group supports the freedom of all employees to form unions as a channel to communicate their expectations and aspirations. Each subsidiary and their labour union representatives have agreed upon a Collective Labour Agreement which is aimed at protecting the employees’ and the Group’s rights and obligations. All our employees are protected by the Collective Labour Agreement which covers industrial relations, working hours, remuneration, out-of-post assignments and transfers, social security and welfare, occupational health and safety, as well as employment termination.


We hold focus group discussions and meetings at least once a year with the labour unions which aim to take into consideration the aspirations, suggestions, inputs and criticisms from our employees. All employees can also convey their aspirations through the human resource department. The Group communicates all changes related to employment via emails, circulars, or its internal portal.


Fair Wages and Employee Benefits

The minimum wage in Indonesia differs from province to province as it is set by provincial and district authorities. First Resources follows the minimum wage agreements and all new guidelines or revisions to the existing agreements according to Regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah) No. 78 year 2015. Hence, First Resources has made the salary structure such that the lowest wage paid is at least the respective minimum wage (in-line with the regulation).


We keep records of all salaries and money paid to employees and contractors. Payment records are acknowledged by workers, and clarification is provided to ensure that payment calculations are understood. We also provide additional benefits to our employees, and the benefits received by permanent employees differ from those received by contract employees. First Resources pays an annual bonus to all permanent employees according to individual performance and the Group’s performance. Permanent employees are also provided with insurance coverage.


We aim to house all our plantation and mill employees and their families in a safe and healthy living environment on our estates. Besides housing and sanitation, our workers have access to other amenities such as running water, electricity, medical care, sports and recreational facilities, and places of worship. Educational facilities for employees’ children, such as kindergartens and primary schools, day care centres and school buses are also provided.


In alignment with RSPO Principles and Criteria (P&C) 6.2, we implement RSPO guidance on Implementing a Decent Living Wage (DLW). Following this guidance, we have conducted prevailing wages calculation at our RSPO-certified sites, where we not only provide wages that meet the minimum legal and industry standards for staff and workers, but also provide cash allowances and benefits to achieve a decent standard of living for workers and their families. Based on these practices, we ensure that the aggregate value of employee benefits and wages exceeds the applicable minimum wage. 


TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT


We enhance our performance in the long term by recruiting, developing and retaining talented people. This is why we continuously invest to improve our staff development programmes and strengthen our human capital. Every year, the First Resources Learning Centre assesses the training needs of our employees. Training is prioritised in line with the Group’s business and operational requirements. We have established regular training programmes that include field assistant training, mill assistant training, administration assistant training, and foreman training. Non-regular training programmes are also provided on topics such as harvesting management, fertilising management, e-plantation systems, problem solving, decision-making and other soft skills on an as-needed basis. Training is provided by First Resources’ coaches and specialist vendors, while continual on-the-job training and mentorships are provided by managers and supervisors.



 
Sustainability Policy

  

Certifications

  

Environmental Management
• High Carbon Stock
• High Conservation Value
• Peat, Soil and Water Mgmt
• Zero Burning Policy
• Greenhouse Gases
• Integrated Pest Mgmt
• Waste Mgmt

  

Community Engagement
• FPIC
• Smallholder Partnership
• Community Development

  

Supply Chain
• Traceability

  

Employee Relations
• Employment Practices
• Occupational Health & Safety

  

Sustainability Reports

  

Grievance Procedure
• Grievance List