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FLA Process
The Fair Labor Association combines the efforts of participating companies, licensees, universities, and consumer, labor and human rights groups to promote adherence to international labor standards and improve working conditions worldwide. The FLA works to increase and sustain factory compliance with its Workplace Code of Conduct, which is based on the core labor standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The FLA Process is a system that enables companies to effectively implement the Code, and includes the means by which to verify and report on compliance.
Commitment to FLA Standards
The FLA process begins with companies making a formal commitment to the FLA’s standards and system. Companies agree to adopt the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct in the manufacture of their products. This marks the first step. The “continuous-improvement approach” of the FLA program then requires companies to put principle into practice.
Monitoring and Verification
Participation in the FLA requires companies to establish an internal compliance program throughout their supply chains. This includes internal monitoring and remediation of instances of non-compliance, and various activities to ensure that the Code is implemented. The FLA staff conducts onsite visits to company headquarters and field offices to evaluate a company's progress in establishing systems to uphold its FLA commitments.
The FLA relies on independent external monitoring (IEM) to verify companies' activities to comply with their obligations. The FLA selects independent external monitors, accredited by the FLA, to perform unannounced inspection visits of companies' supplier factories around the world. The FLA does not give companies or factories advance notice of the time or location of these monitoring visits.
Remediation and Follow-up
When an IEM visit uncovers Code noncompliance, the FLA process requires companies to work with their suppliers to remediate the issue within 60 days, at which point the company must report the correction of the issue back to the FLA.
The FLA then evaluates the company's remediation plan, advises it on necessary actions, collects evidence, and, when deemed necessary by FLA staff, conducts a follow-up visit to verify that the company has taken the necessary steps to remediate the noncompliance issue.
Public Reporting
Finally, the FLA publishes both a Public Report that describes FLA companies' compliance efforts as well as tracking charts, which contain detailed information about the IEM findings from each monitored factory, its remediation plan, and the status of actions called for in the plan. The annual Public Report and the tracking charts can be found on the FLA website.
Third Party Complaints
The FLA has also established a third party complaint mechanism. It provides an additional reporting channel and a further check on systematic monitoring efforts. Any person or group that uncovers instances of noncompliance in a company's supplier facility can file a third-party complaint with the FLA. For detailed reports on some third party complaints that were submitted to the FLA in 2003, click here.
Special Projects
To help address systemic noncompliance issues that have proven particularly difficult to remediate on a factory-by-factory basis, the FLA has developed a number of special projects to complement the regular FLA compliance program. The goal of these projects is to involve a wide range of interested parties in testing and innovating new strategies to improve Code compliance. Current special efforts include: a pilot project focusing on hours of work in China; a project exploring strategic monitoring and the relationship between improved labor-relations systems and Code compliance; and the Central America project, which addresses blacklisting and anti-union activities in the maquiladora sector.
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