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Jobs & Internships
Development and Communications Manager
SAI - New York
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Pillars in Practice Program
 'Like' & view photos of the program on Facebook
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Training Courses
-Getting Started in Your Company
-Building Your Internal Social Performance Team
Guadalajara, Mexico
May 26-30
(Spanish)
Hamburg, Germany
July 21-25
(English)
SA8000 Advanced Auditor Training
Bangkok, Thailand
June 11-13
(English)
Hamburg, Germany
July 28-30
(English)
SA8000 Online Training
SA8000 Online Revision Course
NGOs & Trade Unions
Complimentary seats available for NGO & trade union representatives. For more information, email SAI Training Coordinator Stephanie Wilson at ECrain@sa-intl.org.
View Photos from SAI's Training Courses
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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.
SAI- Human Rights at Work
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Bangladesh - 1 Year after Rana Plaza Collapse
SAI Remembers those that Suffered in the Rana Plaza Tragedy and Continues its Commitment to Improve Labor Conditions in Bangladesh
Today marks the one year anniversary of the disastrous collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka that killed 1,130 garment factory workers. SAI would like to express once again our deep sympathy and sadness about the horrific event. We on the SAI staff reaffirm our continued dedication to improving the lives of workers in Bangladesh by improving labor conditions. SAI remains committed to external collaboration and engagement with business, government agencies, trade unions and NGOs in the global struggle to ensure human rights and decent working conditions in every workplace.
Since this tragedy SAI has continued its 10-year engagement in Bangladesh, increasing work on fire and building safety in addition to auditor training and work on improving the broader range of prevalent human and labor rights issues. Bangladesh is a key focus country in our Pillars in Practice Program (PIP), in partnership with the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DiHR) and the CSR Centre Bangladesh. PIP builds the capacity of local civil society organizations to engage with and train on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights.
Most recently SAI added two new trainers to our team in Bangladesh. MD. Bodiuz Zaman and Muhammed Asif Hassan. These trainers currently work with SAI as Master Trainers for the Alliance and conduct "train the trainer" sessions, primarily in Dhaka. We welcome them to the team and are grateful for the opportunity to further contribute in the effort to transform working conditions in Bangladesh.
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Welcoming SAI's Bangladesh Based Trainers
Two Trainers Based in Dhaka Join the SAI Team for Work with the Alliance on Fire and Building Safety
We would like to welcome to the SAI team two trainers currently engaged as master trainers on behalf of SAI with the Alliance for Bangladesh.
 | | Md. Bodiuz Zaman |
Md. Bodiuz Zaman
Mr. Zaman has a 14 year history of working in compliance, HR and administration in the textiles and RMG sector in Bangladesh. He is a IRCA, UK certified lead auditor of ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 as well as qualified under the basic and advanced auditor courses for SA8000. Mr. Zaman has factory audit experience with ISO9001, BSCI, IWAY, SEDEX, and WRAP standards in both the RMG and textile industries. This extensive experience in auditing to labor standards in Bangladesh is complimented by Mr. Zaman's thorough knowledge of Bangladesh labor laws and their interpretation. In his education he has received both an M.Sc. and PGDHRM.
 | | Muhammed Asif Hasan |
Muhammed Asif Hasan
Mr. Hasan is experienced with the planning, preparation, and execution of a range of audits and assessments in Bangladesh, covering social compliance, occupational health and safety, environmental compliance, and statutory compliance. His other major areas of work include providing training on safety critical issues such as fire safety for sustainable business, electrical risk & building safety assessment initiatives, OHS and personal development training focusing on leadership skill development, managing change, fair trade and ethical business practices.
Mr. Hasan worked for over 20+ years in the pharmaceutical, automotive, consumer retail, and ready-made apparels sector, most recently focusing on providing entrepreneurial know-how & business development services to budding entrepreneurs to establish new businesses and projects.
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SAI Publishing Living Wage Report
A Living Wage Figure for Rural Dominican Republic Calculation Methodology Explained
In October 2013, a team composed of Richard Anker (former Senior Economist at the ILO), Martha Anker (former Senior Statistician at the WHO), Alex Katz (SAI) and Maria Trinidad (Fairtrade International) conducted a research trip in the rural North and East of the Dominican Republic in order to test a new methodology for calculating the living wage. Now, SAI in partnership with Fairtrade and the Ankers, is proud to release the report of this effort, written by Richard Anker, in both English and Spanish. It includes a living wage figure for rural Dominican Republic and explains the calculation methodology, an activity SAI strategically seeks to pursue around the globe.
Richard Anker's methodology is groundbreaking. It is an extremely comprehensive method for gathering objective cost of living data from workers themselves by visiting their homes and the markets they use to shop. Through a process of onsite field work that includes extensive stakeholder consultation, the methodology is committed to accuracy and validation by the stakeholder groups in the area who rightly have a say in the methodology's components. Stakeholder groups consulted in this project included banana and sugar workers, banana and sugar plantations, small holders, farmer cooperatives, union representatives, government officials, engineers and architects, auditors, lawyers and academics.
This is the first in a larger series of work for SAI in partnership with Fairtrade International and ISEAL to support Richard Anker's methodology of calculating living wages, which has gained widespread acceptance, for public release.
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SPECTRE's Facility has Four SA8000 Certifications in Latvia
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Spectre facility in Latvia
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SPECTRE made the decision in 2012 to pursue SA8000 certification as a means for a structured and professional way of dealing with their corporate social responsibility as a manufacturer. The organization has four certified facilities in Latvia, and one facility in Vietnam currently undergoing the certification audit process. Over the past year, the benefits of being a socially responsible company have become readily apparent to the company. For example, it now has a new channel for management-worker communication that has led to increased worker engagement. SAI interviewed Mia Walde, CSR Manager, to learn more about SPECTRE's experience with the SA8000 Standard, its workers, and their product.
SAI: Tell us a little bit about SPECTRE as a company.
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Mia Walde, CSR Manager , Spectre
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Mia Walde: SPECTRE is a medium sized Danish garment manufacturer with its roots going back to 1947. Particularly since the nineties when we started outsourcing our production to Eastern Europe, we have seen an increasing international approach on a wide range of activities: our export is close to 100%, raw materials for the production are sourced and purchased all over the world - in USA, Europe and Asia - and our production is now based on two platforms; in Latvia, Eastern Europe, and Vietnam, Asia. Our products consist of fleece jackets and fleece tops, soft shell jackets, technical t-shirts, underwear etc.The target segments are trekking, hiking, climbing, alpine skiing, mountain biking, road biking, running, golfing and sports fishing. The products are positioned in the medium and upper level of the market.
Working in a labor intensive industry like garment production with the vast majority of our employees located in Latvia and Vietnam - and with many suppliers located in Asia - it has become increasingly important for us to find a structured and professional way of working with CSR.
Back in 2009 Spectre decided to prepare the company for the SA8000 certification. With little knowledge and reduced possibilities for external SA8000 assistance the amount of work related to this preparation grew to more than it was possible for us to cope with at the time.
In 2012 the management made the decision to allocate the resources necessary for a SA8000 implementation and start up the certification process of our four sites in Latvia. The certification of all four factories in Latvia was achieved by July 2013. In Vietnam we had the SA8000 pre-audit and we are now working to get ready for the full audit in March 2014.
SAI: Where does most of your workforce come from?
Mia Walde: In Latvia we have employees from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia and in Vietnam all our employees are Vietnamese.
SAI: Why did you choose to pursue SA8000 certification?
Mia Walde: Spectre chose SA8000 over other CSR approaches mainly because it was in our own interest, but also because there was a costumer request. We saw that many customers had interest in certifications within social standards. However, there are many different certifications and labeling standards and therefore we chose to go for the highest common denominator, to avoid having to deal with many different ones.
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Spectre facility in Vietnam
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SAI: What are some of the benefits that you've seen from becoming SA8000 certified?
Mia Walde: Several large and small changes have been made to the benefit of both employees and management. First of all, we have a structured way of managing CSR issues, especially within health and safety. This is beneficial, because there are so many procedures needed. In relation to internal communication about the SA8000 system, one of the initiatives we took through the implementation process was establishing a new communication channel between management and employees. This has already been used broadly for large and small issues with success.
SAI: What are some of the benefits that you would like to see from achieving SA8000 certification?
Mia Walde: The system is still new to our company and though we can see that after only 6 months people are getting used to some of the new routines, we are still looking forward to getting all employees engaged in the system. Whenever you implement changes in an organization some people will react with skepticism because they need to change their own behavior due to new routines or similar. We hope that, for example, some of the documentation tasks will start making more sense to everybody when they
see how we can use the result
s to improve procedures and in the end improve their work place.
SAI: Do you have any programs for your workers that you are particularly proud of?
Mia Walde: Through our new communication channel employees are able to communicate more directly and bring forward ideas for the management. This is widely used on one of our factories in Latvia and we see several examples of constructive suggestions and how these cases are handled in a professional way from our local management. We are glad to see that our employees are engaged in their working place and that this system has been implemented so easily.
SAI: As an SA8000 certified facility, what are some areas that might be challenging to achieve compliance?
Mia Walde: It is obviously easier to manage and control internal policies and procedures than influencing external partners. We have developed tools for controlling and cooperating with our suppliers, but in reality it is not up to our company alone to select the suppliers. We hope that a closer cooperation both upstream and downstream the supply chain will improve the standards for employees outside our own company.
SAI: What are the difficulties of social compliance in your industry?
Mia Walde: Many of our challenges are related to the length of the supply chain. Many processing steps are conducted and each step by a new supplier. Usually the major risks occur upstream the chain and in many cases the brands are not even in contact with these sub-suppliers, making it complex to control or monitor the risks.
The garment industry is also a market demanding low prices and fast delivery times putting a lot of pressure on the production.
SAI: What are the difficulties of social compliance in the countries of your manufacturing locations?
Mia Walde: Generally the question of living wage and minimum wage is relevant for Vietnam as well as the number of working hours for a normal working week.
In Latvia we see the same issues though less marked. Corruption is also known to be a challenge in Latvia, but it is not something we have experienced.
We are mainly facing challenges in terms complying with the limitation of overtime hours in peak season and minor difficulties within health and safety procedures such as registering small injuries etc.
For more information On the SA8000 Standard and certification, contact Senior Manager of Research and Stakeholder Relations, Alex Katz. - AKatz@sa-intl.org.
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SA8000:2014 Standard Revision
SAI revising standard based on public comments received
As written about in previous newsletter articles, such as this one authored by Dorianne Beyer (Chair of the Standards Committee), since February 16 SAI has been revising the SA8000:2014 standard based on the more than 900 comments received during the public consultation period. The comments have been extremely helpful and integral to the process, and SAI would like to thank the commenters for taking the time to submit their well crafted suggestions.
In keeping with the ISEAL Standard Setting Code's transparency requirements and to justify how comments were used, all comments will be exhibited on the SAI website and a discussion and analysis paper will be posted in May. The timeline for the public release of the standard is June 2014, contingent on approval of the standard at SAI's May Advisory Board meeting.
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Pillars in Practice Project Use of Social Fingerprint
Evaluations of Companies with NGOs in Bangladesh, Nicaragua & Zimbabwe
In March 2014 Social Fingerprint evaluations were conducted in conjunction with SAI's local partners in Bangladesh and Nicaragua with companies that have participated in the project since its commencement. In Bangladesh, local partner CSR Centre worked with SAI to evaluate the garment manufacturer, DBL Group, in order to obtain a baseline assessment and gap analysis of the company's implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Likewise, in Nicaragua, local partner uniRSE participated in the evaluation of sugar company, CASUR.
Social Fingerprint has been adapted for the project's work in Zimbabwe, where local partner ZELA will help SAI evaluate the capacity of the human rights advocacy NGO, CRD, to assess the implementation of the UNGPs by mining companies. This is an superbly exciting opportunity to adapt Social Fingerprint for use building the capacity of NGOs.
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Staff of SAI Partners for Pillars in Progress, Zela and DIHR, working together on Zimbabwe based project goals
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Following these assessment, SAI's local partners will produce case studies on changes in the implementation of the UNGPs by the companies in Bangladesh and Nicaragua and the NGO in Zimbabwe. These case studies will be published and available for download. They are intended to provide a learning opportunity for all concerned - the organization that is the subject of the case study, the reader, the case author and peer reviewers - and to increase the body of knowledge related to the practical implementation of the UNGPs.
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The SA8000:2014 Standard
Alignment with UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights
By Edwin Koster, SAI�s Authorized European Representative and Lead Trainer on SAI�s UN Guiding Principles Training Course
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Edwin Koster
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In June 2011, the UN adopted the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, a document that has come to be known as the most influential set of principles on Business and Human Rights. It has influenced international organizations, governments, and companies to align their policies and procedures to it. In fact, the EU has made the Guiding Principles one of its central documents in its new CSR strategy, and in 2011 the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises were revised to include the Guiding Principles via a new chapter on human rights. In relation to SAI's work, a valid question is: to what extent is the new SA8000: 2014 standard aligned with the Guiding Principles? It is important to describe a couple of key differences between the Guiding Principles and the SA8000 standard before summarizing their alignment. While on the one hand the Guiding Principles acts as soft law, SA8000 is a voluntary standard available for auditable third party verification. Thus, the Guiding Principles provide a global standard of conduct and framework for understanding human rights risk, while SA8000 sets a practical standard for compliance. Scope is the second key distinction between the Guiding Principles and SA8000. While the Guiding Principles refer to all human rights, SA8000, on the other hand, contains specific auditable requirements on labour rights. Labour rights may be seen as a subset of human rights, and SA8000 focuses on these rights in line with our mission, as do other organizations with specific expertise on other equally important human rights issues such as the right to education, the right to water, the right to land and property, etc. As for their use, there are synergies between the Guiding Principles and SA8000, and they may be used in conjunction. Take for example the fact that the Guiding Principles assist in the prioritization of human rights risks based on severity. If a company concludes that the violation of labour rights poses a high risk, SA8000 may be used as a tool to address such risks. In other words: the Guiding Principles can be the set of overarching set of principles or "umbrella", whereas SA8000 can be (one of) the practical tool(s) to apply. For business, the Guiding Principles describe three key processes necessary for implementation of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. These processes are referred to as: policy commitment, human rights due diligence and access to remedy. In the following, I will detail how these processes are aligned with implementation of SA8000. Policy Commitment
Like the Guiding Principles, SA8000 requires a policy statement to demonstrate senior management commitment to SA8000, or human rights in the case of the Guiding Principles The policy statement required by SA8000 must include the organisation's commitment to conform to all requirements of the SA8000 standard, the international instruments listed in the "Normative Elements and Their Interpretation" section of SA8000 (which includes the Guiding Principles), national laws, , other applicable laws and other requirements to which the organisation subscribes. Like the Guiding Principles, SA8000 mandates that the policy statement is made publicly available in an effective form and manner to interested parties.
Human Rights Due Diligence The Guiding Principles advocate for Human Right Due Diligence. This is described in the Guiding Principles as a process which "should include assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed." In line with the Guiding Principles, SA8000 requires organisations to conduct periodic risk assessments to identify and prioritise areas of actual or potential risk. Actions to address these risks should be prioritised according to their severity or where a delay in responding would make it impossible to address. The certified workplace shall develop policies and procedures to integrate or operationalize the SA8000 standard. Integration is addressed via steps which include development and review of policies and procedures, the set-up of a balanced worker-management Social Performance Team, an elected worker representative for dialogue with management, and via periodic instruction, training, and awareness programs for workers. Certified workplaces are required to monitor the effectiveness of their policies and procedures. Routine internal audits are required as part of monitoring. Certified workplaces need to demonstrate that they periodically revise their commitment based on stakeholder consultation, and internal assessment, monitoring and audits. The Guiding Principles hold that companies should address the negative human rights impacts of their business partners: "Business enterprises may be involved with adverse human rights impacts either through their own activities or as a result of their business relationships with other parties." Such business relations include suppliers and sub-suppliers. The SA8000 standards accounts for that by requiring that organisations conduct due diligence on their suppliers/subcontractors, private employment agencies and (if appropriate and when utilised and known to the organisation) sub-suppliers' compliance with the SA8000 standard. In all steps of the Due Diligence process, the Guiding Principles describe the importance of stakeholder consultation. This is central to SA8000; the standard defines steps and procedures which make sure that the position of a key stakeholder - trade unions - is not undermined but strengthened where possible. Remediation The Guiding Principles describe the importance of effective access to remedy for groups or individuals whose rights have been harmed. For business, the Guiding Principles emphasize the importance of operational grievance mechanisms. SA8000 requires written, confidential, unbiased, non-retaliatory and accessible grievance mechanisms that allow personnel and interested parties to make comments, recommendations, reports or complaints concerning the workplace and/or non-conformances to the standard. Organisations must have procedures for investigating, remediating and communicating the outcome of complaints concerning the workplace, and these results must be freely available to all personnel and, upon request, to interested stakeholders.
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SAI's Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Board
Peek into Agenda Items for Spring Meeting
SAI's multi-stakeholder Advisory Board (AB)meets May 26-28 in New York City.
Major issues on the agenda include:
- Review and proposed approval of SA8000:2014
- SAI 5-year strategic plan review and progress on 2014 annual plan
- Social Fingerprint Rapid Results Worker Engagement 100-day project
- Living Wage project with FairTrade & ISEAL, methodology by Richard and Martha Anker
- Report from SAAS on quality of certifications and the forthcoming new Procedure 200
- Discussion of a possible new program for certified facilities
AB members expected to attend include our Chair Amy Hall (Eileen fisher), Tensie Whelan (Rainforest Alliance), , Bob Mitchell (Hewlett Packard),
Ivano Corriani (Federazione Italiana Lavoratori del Commercio, Turismo e servizi), and Margaret Jungk (Danish Institute of Human Rights).
Observers will include representatives of the Walt Disney Company, FILCTEM-CGIL, Senac (Brazil), and Timberland.
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SA8000 Auditor Training Courses in China and Italy
Snapshots from courses that took place in Shenzhen (China) and Bologna (Italy)
 | | SA8000 Advanced Auditor Training course Shenzhen, China on March 26-28, 2014 with SAI Lead Trainer Mike Lee [Photo credit: Phoenix Zhang] |
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SA8000 Advanced Auditor Training course, Bologna, Italy on April 7-9, 2014 with SAI Lead Trainer Doug DeRuisseau [Photo credit: Doug DeRuisseau)
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Highlights & Announcements
Harvard Business Review Poland Conference
Sanjiv Singh, Authorized Representative for SAI in the Middle East and Lead Trainer for the SA8000 standard delivered a keynote speech at a conference organized by Harvard Business Review Poland in Warsaw, Poland on 27 March 2014. The presentation highlighted reasons why investors and consumers pay more attention to CSR and the reputational risk associated with social performance issues in the supply chain. The speech covered recent social responsibility trends noticed globally and drivers that prompt large corporations to address social responsibility in their organizations. Business benefits of socially responsible practices related to marketing, production and investment were also covered in the keynote speech. The HBR Poland conference was attended by senior human resource personnel from large multinational organizations in Poland and discussions during the conference indicated the greater interest in implementing SA8000 amongst those that participated.
 | | Pictured above: Sanjiv Singh Delivering the Keynote Address at the HBR Poland Conference |
Ethical Sourcing Forum
On March 27 and 28, representatives from SAI attended Intertek's annual EthicalSourcing Forum held in New York City. On the 28th, SAI Director of Corporate Programsand Training, Jane Hwang, and SAI Executive Advisor, Craig Moss, led an interactiveworkshop entitled "Worker - Manager Collaboration to Achieve Rapid Results and DriveSustainable Change." In this workshop, participants were divided into groups ofworkers and managers to experience the power of Social Fingerprint Rapid Results™, aprogram jointly developed by SAI and the Rapid Results Institute. Utilizing active roleplay, participants had the unique opportunity to be "on the factory floor" grappling withhow to make remarkable improvements in workplace health and safety from twodistinct, and often conflicting perspectives. In the end, the worker-manager teams willcame together to set a challenging 100-day workplace improvement goal and learnabout the process improvements needed to meet the goal and make the changesustainable.
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Craig Moss Leading Interactive Workshop - "Worker - ManagerCollaboration to Achieve Rapid results and Drive Sustainable Change
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BSCI Stakeholder Council
SAI CEO Alice Tepper Marlin will travel to Brussels to participate in the BSCI Stakeholder Council Meeting on April 28
Advisory Board members speak at Stern School of Business, NYU MBA program
Coleen von Haden of Timberland, Amy Hall of Eileen Fisher and Tensie Whelan of Rainforest Alliance will speak this spring at the "Corporate Branding & CSR" course developed by John & Alice Tepper Marlin with Prof. Bruce Buchanan. Both Timberland and Eileen Fisher are highly committed Corporate Program members members of SAI. Amy and Tensie serve on the SAI Advisory Board and Coleen on the SAAS Board of Directors.
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