SAI Quarterly - April 2019
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SAI and Partners of the Americas receive $6 million to improve labor conditions in palm oil industry
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The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has awarded $6 million to SAI and our partner organizations,
Partners of the Americas
(Partners) and J.E. Austin Associates (JAA), for our project to address child labor, forced labor, and working conditions in the Latin American palm oil industry.
Over the next four years, SAI will work with companies, workers, and communities in Colombia and Ecuador to build up robust social performance systems that improve conditions for workers at every level of the supply chain—from industrial processing plants, to large-scale plantations, to thousands of smallholder farms. SAI and Partners will also work with stakeholders and government officials to build capacity at the local and national level. JAA will conduct an in-depth value chain analysis, positioning the industry to link improved social performance and business competitiveness. The companies' experiences will be turned into Harvard Business School case studies, guiding future generations of business and organizational decision-makers. The overall project outcomes and tools will be disseminated in Brazil, Peru, and other key palm-producing regions.
Palm oil can be found in up to half of all consumer goods and commercial food products. It is an important cooking oil around the world, cosmetic ingredient, and an increasingly important biofuel. As a widespread and versatile global commodity, palm oil production impacts millions of farmers, workers, and communities across the globe. In addition to improving conditions at specific companies in Latin America, SAI and our partners seek to demonstrate through detailed market analysis that palm oil produced and processed in a socially sustainable way can be competitive in the global market. This project is an exciting opportunity to raise expectations for social performance across an important global industry and improve conditions for workers around the world.
For more information, contact Stephanie Wilson, Associate Director—Innovation & Partnerships,
[email protected].
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Workers harvesting palm fruit at a palm plantation in Colombia
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Workers processing palm fruit
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A demonstration about palm cultivation and soil management
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SAI and WRAP help introduce new social performance requirements for Kingpins denim trade show
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The denim-industry trade show Kingpins is integrating social performance requirements for companies exhibiting at their influential showcases around the world. Kingpins introduced the requirements—which include recognition of SAI’s SA8000
®
and Social Fingerprint
®
—at their show in Amsterdam April 10-11, and they expect that by 2020 all exhibiting mills will demonstrate compliance with an approved social performance program. These requirements are expected to have a significant impact on labor standards throughout the global denim manufacturing industry as Kingpins Shows in Europe and the USA attract buyers and brands accounting for an estimated 80% of all denim consumption.
SAI Founders' Committee member Robin Cornelius and SAI Senior Advisor Edwin Koster helped introduce the new requirements at the Amsterdam show with Kingpins founder, Andrew Olah, and the president of Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP), Avedis Seferian. The seminar— “Does Your Denim Mill Have Any Social Standards?”—focused on how denim mills can attain standards by 2020 and what that means to brands and retailers.
Read more
.
For more information, contact Rochelle Zaid, Senior Director—Standards & Impacts, rzaid@
@sa-intl.org.
Photo credit: Kingpins via SourcingJournal.com
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Advocating for workers' rights in Cambodia
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The garment, footwear, and travel goods manufacturing industry in Cambodia has skyrocketed over the past decade, bringing employment to millions of workers and significant foreign investment to the country. However, concerns about human rights for workers have been growing more and more pressing over the past several years (see our joint letter to the government from
March 2018).
Specifically, SAI and co-signing organizations are concerned about the many labor leaders currently facing criminal charges and convictions; the Trade Union Law of 2016 which continues to restrict establishment of unions and union activity; and the diminished role of the Arbitration Council, which continues to undercut dispute resolution in the country.
Recently, EU and US officials have decided to review preferential trade agreements with Cambodia in response to these ongoing concerns, threatening Cambodian industry and workers. In response to this strong statement by several of Cambodia's most important trading partners, we write again to urge implementation of promised changes to the minimum wage, draft dispute settlement, and trade union laws.
Read the letter.
Co-signers: American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), amfori, European Branded Clothing Alliance (EBCA), Fair Labor Association (FLA), Fair Wear Foundation (FWF), Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry (FESI), WFSGI‐World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry.
For more information, contact Christopher Lamoureux, Manager—Policy & Stakeholder Engagement,
[email protected].
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Implementing Living Wage principles in your business and supply chain —
Register Now
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SAI's new one-day course, Introduction to Living Wage, provides practical guidance for companies looking to implement living wage concepts in their supply chain. This public course is based on custom training sessions we have delivered for companies around the world.
Some of the topics we cover include:
- Estimating living wage
- Assessing current wages
- Conducting gap analyses between living and current wages
- Prioritizing areas for implementation efforts
- Implementing responsible purchasing practices
- and other strategies to drive improvements in wages in a supply chain
Our first public session for this course took place on April 16 in Amsterdam to a full house, including representatives from major global brands and retailers in the apparel, food, and automotive industries, as well as from major international NGOs.
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Registration is now open for the following sessions:
New York | May 14
Amsterdam | June 11
Amsterdam | October 1
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We also offer this course as a custom training for organizations. Please contact Stephanie Wilson for more information:
[email protected]
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