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Top 3 News Stories
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Spring 2011 Internships
(New York, NY)
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Social Accountability International (SAI) is a non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization established to advance the human rights of workers by promoting decent work conditions, labor rights, and corporate social responsibility through voluntary standards and capacity building.
SAI is headquartered in the United States with field representation in Brazil, China, Costa Rica, India, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Switzerland, and UAE.
For newsletter inquiries contact:SAI Communications Manager- Joleen Ong, jong@sa-intl.org |
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 SAI Announces Enhanced Corporate Programs Membership
New Corporate Programs Membership will increase benefits, including more interaction and shared learning among members
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SAI Corporate Program members in 2011 represent a range of industries.
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SAI is pleased to announce its newly enhanced Corporate Programs, which seek to enable more interaction and shared learning among all members. Offered at no increased cost, this revised membership program provides companies with greater access to SAI's sophisticated supply chain management training- including Social Fingerprint® - multi-stakeholder input, and the ability to confidentially benchmark their programs against other members. The changes are designed to benefit current members, which include companies from a range of industries, in addition to all incoming members. The three levels of Corporate Programs membership - Supporting, Explorer and Signatory - each will offer added services. Some of the new services for companies and their suppliers were developed in response to member input >>Read more
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SAI & ICCO Working to Operationalize Ruggie Guiding Principles
SAI & ICCO will collaborate on a handbook and toolkit to help businesses implement the UN Guiding Principles for Business & Human Rights
 SAI and the Netherlands-based Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO) are pleased to announce the launch of a collaborative project to operationalize the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.SAI, with support from ICCO, will develop a handbook and training program based on the framework. The focus will be on helping businesses develop and implement management systems to operationalize the Guiding Principles in their supply chain. The handbook will also include a step-by-step guide with sample documents, and advice on how companies can scale the system to their own size and level of risk.
Finalized in March 2011 by UN Special Representative John Ruggie, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are intended to help operationalize the UN "Protect, Respect and Remedy" Framework. To assist in this transformation from principles to practice, SAI and ICCO's handbook and training program will help companies address questions concerning interpretation, scope, and practical integration. The handbook is expected to be released in mid-2012, and the training will be initially piloted in the Netherlands, Brazil and India; additional countries are expected to be included later. The training will be offered in the classroom, and also online, through SAI's Social Fingerprint® Online Training Center.>>Read more
For more information, contact SAI Europe Representative Edwin Koster at Ekoster@sa-intl.org. |
ISSP Webinar: Implementing Living Wages in Global Supply ChainsMatt Fischer-Daly will lead this webinar, featuring factory case studies from Thailand and Honduras
In supply chains across the world, men and women labor in low-wage jobs, making insufficient income in a regular work week to cover the cost of living. What can responsible businesses do to ensure that workers throughout the supply chain receive living wages? What are the implications of wage levels for the sustainability of communities around the world?Join SAI Senior Manager Matt Fischer-Daly for a discussion on how businesses can implement living wages in their global supply chains, and the role of certification standards such as SAI's SA8000®>>Read more For more information about this upcoming webinar, contact SAI Communications Manager Joleen Ong at JOng@sa-intl.org.
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Do Not Just Understand the World - Improve it"
Reflections on the IFC-ILO Better Work Conference, "Workers, Businesses and Government: Understanding Labor Compliance in Global Supply Chains"
On October 28, Steven Purcey, Director of the Policy Integration Department at the ILO, closed the 3-day Better Work Conference with instructions: 'do not just understand the world- improve it, with courage and informed strategies'. The message reflects the Better Work approach to improving labor standards compliance. SAI attended the conference to hone our own programs, which share with Better Work the strategies of tripartite capacity building and promotion of social dialogue as the foundations of an enabling environment for labor rights. The Better Work conference brought together practitioners, policymakers and researchers to evaluate the projects' performance to-date and identify improvements. >>Read more This article was written by SAI Senior Manager, Matt Fischer-Daly. For more information, contact him at Mfischer-daly@sa-intl.org.
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Honduras, After the 2009 CoupHow CDH, SAI's Honduras-based partner in Project Cultivar, paved the way forward through social dialogue | |
Just three months before the June 2009 coup, this multi-stakeholder group convened by CDH, representing suppliers, unions, and civil society, discussed ways to cultivate a culture of labor compliance in Honduran agriculture
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The first military coup to rattle Central America since the end of the Cold War ousted democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009. The President of the Honduran Congress Roberto Micheletti was immediately sworn in as the country's new president, and hundreds of Zelaya supporters took to the streets in protest. The ensuing polarization of Honduran society significantly impacted work of the Center for Human Development (CDH), the local implementing partner for SAI's Project Cultivar. Half way into the four-year U.S. Department of Labor-funded project to improve labor law compliance in agriculture, SAI and CDH needed to reassess their strategies. >>Read more View the original article in Spanish in the REAL CARD magazine @bit.ly/qOHbNu. This article was written by SAI Development Manager Eliza Wright. For more information, contact her at EWright@sa-intl.org.
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Meet SAI's New Intern: Rabayah Akhter
Ms. Akhter will be working with SAI Development Manager Eliza Wright
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Rabayah Akhter
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About Rabayah Akhter: I am a Master's candidate at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where I'm concentrating in Social Policy and Management. I'm most interested in good governance and public management in developing countries and how governments can be more effective at policy making and implementation. Before I came to New York, I was living in Mopti, Mali for 2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer. My primary assignment was to help a local NGO improve its small business of selling jewelry made by women recovering from fistula surgery. I spent much of my time adapting to the culture >>Read more
For more information, please contact Rabayah Akhter at RAkhter@sa-intl.org.
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Highlights & Announcements
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