Manufacturing standards
When a company joins the Fair Labor Association’s manufacturing program, its leadership makes a commitment to the Principles of Fair Labor and Responsible Sourcing and/or the Principles of Fair Labor and Responsible Production and agrees to uphold the Fair Labor Code in its supply chain.
The Fair Labor Code and Fair Labor Principles are applied at different parts of the supply chain and work in tandem to protect laborers and improve working conditions.
FLA member companies implement the Fair Labor Principles at their company headquarters. Fair Labor Principles focus on the systems, frameworks, policies, and procedures a company must have in place to ensure that workers’ rights are respected in its global supply chain.
Members work with suppliers to implement the Fair Labor Code at the factory level. The code of conduct is accompanied by compliance benchmarks, which identify specific requirements for meeting each code element. The code and compliance benchmarks set out the standards that a factory must have in place to protect workers’ rights.
Members are assessed regularly against the principles and benchmarks. FLA implements several types of Independent External Assessments to evaluate the performance of each member company’s human rights due diligence program and working conditions at the factory level.
FLA’s Workplace Code of Conduct has been a solid guide for our social compliance efforts and the backbone of our global operating principles.
Manufacturing standards
Principles of Responsible Sourcing and Production
Factory assessments
Factory assessments
Types of factory assessments
Approved monitoring organizations and assessors
Milestones towards Fair Labor Accreditation
Fair Labor Accreditation sets a manufacturing company on a concrete path to improving labor conditions in its Tier One and owned manufacturers.
To earn accreditation, companies must meet a rigorous series of milestones in implementing, monitoring, and remediating workplace standards based on FLA’s Fair Labor Practices. Each milestone represents key building blocks companies need for an effective social compliance program that improves working conditions and worker well-being.
When a manufacturing company joins FLA, it commits to achieving accreditation of its social compliance program within five years of being approved as an FLA member. Companies are also required to actively participate in any Fair Labor Investigations accepted through the Third Party Complaint channel.