A transatlantic alliance has been formed between two organizations involved in ethical workplace monitoring.
US-based Social Accountability International (SAI), which administers
the SA8000 workplace standard, will provide technical assistance to the
Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) to improve the
Brussels-based organization’s monitoring of supplier workplace
conditions among its 60 European corporate members, which include
Ahold, Hema, Inditex, Intersport, Kesko, Otto Group and Unibrands.
The BSCI, run by the Foreign Trade Association of Europe, has grown
rapidly during the past two years as it has intensified efforts to
improve working conditions at the suppliers of its participating member
companies. It recently revised its code of practice to conform fully to
SA8000 and now sees closer links with SAI as a logical step.
All members of BSCI audit teams, which check supplier conformity with
the code, must have completed an SA8000 auditor course, and BSCI says
its monitoring system ‘is designed to function as a potential
stepping-stone to full implementation of SA8000’. It added: ‘To meet
the demand for continuous improvement, we have agreed to extend SAI
oversight on BSCI audits.’
BSCI, which recently became an organizational stakeholder of the Global
Reporting Initiative, has overseen more than 1000 factory audits since
its formation in 2003, mainly in Asia and eastern Europe and mostly
conducted by third parties such as Bureau Veritas and Det Norske
Veritas.
