Pillars, ILO elements & SA 8000

The SA8000 Standard is based on internationally recognized standards of decent work, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ILO conventions, and national laws. SA8000 applies a management-systems approach to social performance and emphasizes continual improvement—not checklist-style auditing.
Since 1997, when it was launched, the SA8000 Standard has become the world’s leading social certification program for all types of organizations, in any industry, and in any country to conduct business in a way that is fair and decent for workers to demonstrate their adherence to the highest social standards.
The Standard covers topics like child labour, forced labour, health and safety, freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, discrimination, disciplinary practices, working hours, remuneration / wages and references to how to include or set up a management system.


Why linking ILO elements to the SA8000 Standard:
First of all the Standard includes definitions and gives implementation guidance and is generally seen as the ‘gold standard’’, a level to aspire towards to. ILO elements are linked to the four pillars of decent work and provide a monitoring framework and indicators to measure progress towards decent work.
Linking the two provides toolbox users with inspirational guidance how to work on decent work, even in low-income and fragile contexts and can be used to reach ‘more decent’ employment.

Click on the name of the element to get the full definition + all related SA 8000 reqruiments and guidance.