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Deutsche Post DHL held their first Corporate Responsibility Day in Bonn where the company gave details of their activities to support Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Development. UNI and ITF were represented at the day and Andrea Kocsis, the Vice President of UNI and ITF's German affiliate ver.di, was on one of the panel discussions. She told the participants that the Deutsche Post DHL values of Respect and Results needed to be fulfilled and that the Respect part needed to be brought to life. She said global corporations had an obligation to operate with international values and that they needed to be responsible in respect of workers rights and to set acceptable standards. On the same panel discussion, Klaus Milke Head of the corporate watchdog, German Watch, said Deutsche Post DHL CEO Frank Appel, who had spoken earlier in the day, had made all the right statements about the company's commitments, but that was not enough, there needed to be transparency in the way the company operates and proper monitoring and reporting on their Social Responsibility commitments.



Other speakers spoke of the company's commitments and during the workshops held in conjunction with the day, feedback came on making sure the commitments were upheld and this was not just a "green wash" exercise. Neil Anderson, Head of UNI Post & Logistics who was a participant said; "Deutsche Post DHL have taken on board many of our criticisms about the lack of transparency and proper feedback about their sustainability report and their reporting on social responsibility such as workers rights, and this day is a start in getting that feedback. If future days like this are to be a success, stakeholders need to play a much greater part in the proceedings and reports presented on how the company is meeting these commitments that are verified by independent third parties and confirmed by the trade unions in Deutsche Post DHL. UNI and ITF are not satisfied that globally workers rights are being respected and our evidence points to this being a problem, in our view a proper system of monitoring and accountability needs to be developed and incorporated into a Global Agreement with UNI and the ITF."