SA8000 background

Under the increasing pressure of consumers and facing increasingly fierce market competition, many European and American multinational companies have formulated their own social responsibility codes. At the same time, many industry, regional, national and even global industry organizations and non- Government organizations have also formulated different codes. According to ILO statistics, there are more than 400 such codes. On the one hand, multinational companies must promote their company’s social responsibility codes. At the same time, they must abide by industry, regional, national and even global codes to meet the needs of different stakeholder groups. Similarly, for a supplier and manufacturer, it has to deal with the different codes of different customers, and has to repeatedly accept factory audits from different customers. Retailers, suppliers, and factories must not spend a lot of material, manpower and resources. Financial resources are used for the implementation of the code, and the public and consumers are also very dissatisfied with the lack of transparency of the internal supervision system of multinational companies. Both companies and consumers hope to formulate a global social responsibility standard similar to the ISO900 standard, and at the same time establish a set of independent factory inspection and accreditation mechanisms to improve the transparency and credibility of social responsibility audits, and to avoid wasting resources and repeating audits.

AI project director Eileen Kohl Kaufman emphasized that FSC professional certification "a problem with the supervision of working conditions is that these supervisions are scattered and intermittent. Therefore, it is difficult for us to understand the past of the company. One week’s working conditions, it’s difficult to grasp what will happen in the next week. We believe that combining the supervision of corporate performance with the concept of a quality system and providing a new system can enhance our confidence in monitoring corporate working conditions and enable us to Compare the results of supervision in different industries and countries." "Many companies have formulated behavioral standards related to the promotion of employee basic rights and prohibition of discrimination. At present, there are hundreds of types of behavioral standards, which not only makes it difficult for suppliers. It is compliant and extremely inefficient.” “Because of the lack of clear definition of relevant terms and the lack of consensus on the basis of the behavior standard itself, the rectification of serious violations of labor rights is often hindered.”

　　 As early as 1996, a Swiss non-governmental organization once suggested that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) develop a set of ISO 2100 social responsibility management international standards for third-party inspections, but ISO rejected this suggestion. The proposal of the SA8000 standard originated from a conversation between Reg Easy, executive director of SGS Yarsley ICS, and David Wheeler, senior manager of the social audit department of Body Shop, and they developed a third-party SGS actively supports and sponsors the development of the social responsibility standard for factory inspection. In June 1996, SGS director Jim Keegan presided over the first meeting of the significance of establishing social responsibility standards. Some companies and non-governmental organizations from the United States and Europe participated in this meeting. The meeting agreed to develop an international standard for social responsibility that can be used for review. .

　　The Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), as a long-term research on social responsibility and environmental protection, has been actively supporting and participating in the development of social responsibility standards. At the beginning of 1997, the Economic Priorities Committee established the Council on Economic Priorities Agency (CEPAA). CEPAA is responsible for formulating the standard and evaluating it in accordance with ISO Guide 62 (Quality System Evaluation and Basic Requirements for Factory Audit Institutions) Recognized inspection agency. In 2001, the Committee for Accreditation of Economic Priorities (CEPAA) was renamed Social Accountability International (SAI)

The SAI Advisory Committee is responsible for drafting international standards for social responsibility. It is composed of 20 large commercial organizations, non-governmental organizations, labor unions, human rights and children's organizations, academic groups, accounting firms, and factory inspection agencies from 11 countries (list of advisory committees) See Appendix). SAI proposed a draft standard at a meeting of di held in New York. It was originally named SA2000 and finally named SA8000 Social Responsibility International Standard, and it was publicly released in October 1997. On December 12, 2001, after 18 months of public consultation and in-depth research, SAI published a revised version of the SA8000 standard di, namely SA8000:2001.

The United States and other Western countries tried to incorporate labor standards into the WTO framework system, but they were resisted by developing countries

　　The issue of labor standards has always been carried out within the International Labor Organization (ILO). In 1993, at the Marrakesh meeting of the "Uruguay Round" negotiations, the United States and other developed countries proposed to establish "social clauses" in international trade rules to link trade and labor standards. The main purpose was to use political standards to Restricting the export of labor-intensive products from developing countries was unsuccessful because of opposition from developing countries. In December 1996, at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Singapore, the United States and other countries attempted to establish a working group on social provisions in the WTO. It was once again strongly opposed by developing countries and the International Organization of Employers. In November 1999, the United States formally proposed a proposal to the WTO, suggesting the establishment of a "Trade and Labor" working group at the Seattle Conference.

Trade protectionism promotes the creation of SA8000

As a large number of cheap labor-intensive products with international competitiveness in developing countries enter the markets of developed countries, they will have an impact on the domestic markets of developed countries. Since relevant interest groups call for trade protectionism, the United States and other developed countries have increasingly criticized and criticized the labor conditions and labor environment of developing countries in order to protect their domestic markets and reduce political pressure.

　　 In 1997, the American Economic Priority Accreditation Council (CEPAA) was established to actively pay attention to labor conditions. Although it was later renamed Social Accountability International (SAI), its actual operating conditions are the same as CEPAA. The agency designed the Social Responsibility 8000 (SA8000) standard and factory inspection system, and added some factors that international human rights experts believe are very important for social audits. The SAI Advisory Committee has 28 members, 14 of whom are from the United States, one of which is the chairman of SAI, and there is only one member from the Asia-Pacific region. However, only 22 of the 28 people have the right to vote (6 people have the right to vote only when the normal members are absent), while 14 people in the United States have the right to vote, accounting for nearly 2/3. The Clinton administration expressed greater support for SAI and required the supply companies that signed contracts with the United States to meet the requirements of SA8000 as much as possible.