The acronym SA8000 (technically SA8000:2001; SA means Social Accountability) identifies an international certification standard drawn up by CEPAA (Council of Economical Priorities Accreditation Agency) and aimed to certify certain aspects of the company management concerning corporate social responsibility. They are:
- human right respect,
- worker’s right respect,
- safeguard against child exploitation
- safety and health guarantees in work place.
Such international standard is aimed to improve worldwide work condition and allow above all to settle a standard verifiable by third party inspectors.
The standard was born as aggregation of principles set for other international documents like:
- ILO Convention (Work International Organization)
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Child Right International Convention
- ONU Convention against women segregation.
Compared to the normal ISO standards sharing the same formal structure, the SA8000 involves the whole Company. Its impact and depth imply in fact the attention and involvement of Management, Employees, Suppliers, Sub-suppliers, and last but not least Customers.
For example, such standard is inspected by directly interviewing employees at random to detect mobbing events, which would be unprovable if the check is carried out only at managerial stage. Furthermore such standard may be applied to sub-suppliers especially in case of irregular or underpaid workers normally not in direct contact with the certified Company (Nike’s balls have been a striking incident).
SA8000 commitment formalization may be expressed in several ways. A lot of companies in Italy implemented such certification: therefore Italy is the first country in the world for its certified companies. The SA8000 company world list is available at SAAS website. Some of the Italian accredited third party inspectors for SA8000 certification are: BVQI, DNV, CISE[3], Lavoro Etico, RINA, SGS, Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance, TUV.
Typical topics sponsored by SA8000 are:
- Promote workplace health and safety, according to OHSAS 18001 integration
- Grant freedom of association and collective bargaining right
- Fight against child labour, hard labour, segregation and disciplinary procedures not considered in art. 7 of the Statute of Labourers
- Respect of working time and wage criteria
