Complaint #00 - Certification
Details of Facility:
Supplier of Agricultural products to certified organization
| Details of Complaint: |
Element of SA8000 Standard: |
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Insufficient wages |
Compensation 8.1 |
| Excess noise |
Health & Safety 3.1 |
| Villages do not have adequate living spaces for workers |
Health & Safety 3.6 |
| Hazard pesticides used without OSH protection for workers |
Health & Safety 3.1 |
| Pregnancy testing |
Discrimination 5.1 |
| Supplier Control |
Management Systems 9.6 |
Actions Taken
In chronological order:
November 1999: CNMS, a partnership of NGOs and trade unions, brought supplier's working conditions problems to the attention of its customer, Coop Italia, an SA8000 certified organization.
January 2000: The parties cooperated to engage two accredited certification bodies to jointly audit the facility; their reports confirmed a number (not all) of the allegations.
One reported to and retained by CNMS
February 2000 on: Coop Italia communicated with its stakeholders about the situation; it had received five thousand postcards expressing concern.
May 2000, there was a meeting of the interested parties, including the customer, supplier, auditors, NGO, trade unions, and national governmental agencies. Remediation plans acceptable to the stakeholders were cooperatively developed and follow up audits taking place since then have found progress, although not yet complete compliance. (Note this facility was not certified at any time.)
In May 2000, corrective and preventive actions were defined and undertaken which the parties think will remediate the problems over time.
September 2000: meeting with CNMS to share information and plan next audit with participation of local trade unions.
October 2000: with the participation of local NGOs and trade unions, with the agreement of the original complainant, follow up audit took place.
Outcome: As a result, for the first time in Kenya. a trade union has its own office inside a plantation and an improvement plan has been developed and partially implemented. The customer’s management systems for supplier control were used in the investigative audit and in the follow up process. The stakeholder group continues to meet and the facility continues to be periodically audited, with progressively more corrective actions implemented toward compliance with SA8000.
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