SA8000 Revision Process: Public Consultation
SAI invites all interested parties to participate in the revision of the SA8000 standard
Read the article on SAI's website
This month we are pleased to feature an interview with Venugopal Balakrishnan (Venu), the Managing Director of DAS Certification India Pvt. Ltd., CEO of IQ Global Solutions and a Director of AV Cert International FZE/UAE. Here are a sample of his comments and recommendations that we'd like to feature as food for thought, separated by element of the standard:
- Purpose and scope: Need for clarity of management system processes (where people take priority over profits) in the context of SA 8000 must be stressed as part of the 'Introduction' or as part of the elements of 'Context of the Organization'
- Forced and Compulsory Labour: It should be mandatory that recruitment agents be brought under the subcontractor or compliance process with a remediation process similar to the child labor remediation. This is very important for international migrant labor.
- Health and Safety: Formal OHS risk assessment to be made mandatory as a "risk assessment process appropriate for the organizational context, scope and context of workplace."
- Disciplinary Practices: Under the context of disciplinary fines allowed by SA8000:2008 (those allowed by law AND part of a collective bargaining agreement), any disciplinary fines collected shall be redeployed into the workplace for additional gainful measures at the workplace
Mr. Balakrishnan has over 13 years of experience conducting social compliance and management systems audits and is a professional trainer for management systems courses such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and OHSAS 18001. Venu is intimately familiar with local social issues due to his international experience working in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Iran, Qatar, Turkey, the USA, the UK, and Egypt.
The SA8000:2014 review plan and timeline is available at http://bit.ly/SA8000revisiontimeline. A summary of the comments received from the SA8000: 2013-2014 revision process will be available in July 2013. For more information, contact SAI Sr. Manager Alex Katz - AKatz@sa-intl.org.
