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Can RSPO pick up the pace?
Would jumping on the wage ladder help?
- Rajesh Chhabara, 30 June 2009
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Wages – Working for a living
A living wage remains an elusive dream for millions of workers on production lines around the world. But is it one brands can turn into reality?
How much money does someone need to survive in Cambodia? A little over $2 a day, according to the government, which has set Cambodia’s minimum wage at $67 a month.
Cambodian textile workers, who make many of the clothes on sale in the US and Europe, say this wage is derisory. In a report released at a living wage conference in May, a confederation of four national unions asked garment factories and clothing brands to pay workers a “living wage” – a minimum of $93 a month, or $3 a day. Cambodia is a major sourcing destination for western brands, but H&M and Puma were the only big names present at the conference out of seven top brands invited.
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Comments:
Labor conditions - Snigdha Pramanik, 9 Jul 2009
This gives us an insight to the situation of the workers, while we are sporting the garments made by them undergoing hard work & inhuman working conditions & the irony being that they do not have enough to eat or sustain.
The situation in Bangladesh is not very encouraging either, almost 50 factories were put on fire 10 days back due to labor unrest & the workers not being paid the wages rightfully due to them!!
Asia Floor Wage - Jeroen Merk, 6 Oct 2009
So far brands have argued that it is difficult to define or calculate a living wage. Other have argued that collective bargaining should be the process to determine a living wage. While this absolute right, when workers succeeed in setting up unions and want to enter into collective bargaining, there are often confronted with relocation threats.
For these reasons, workers and allies in Asia have put their heads together and developed the Asia Floor Wage campaign, which defines and calculates a living wage for several key Asian garment producing countries, but also seeks to strengthen the bargaining power of workers throughout asia. The Asia Floor Wage (AFW) Alliance is calling upon companies sourcing garment production in Asia to implement an Asia Floor Wage (AFW).
The ground-breaking AFW benchmark, developed by a growing Asian-based alliance of labour rights organisations, has a concrete calculation for a minimum living wage that activists believe companies sourcing in the region should implement. Currently the poverty wages garment workers earn do not cover basic needs and fall far short of a living wage. The AFW will be formally launched at events across Asia this week. (http://www.asiafloorwage.org.
see also: http://www.cleanclothes.org/campaigns/asia-floor-wage-campaign-launches)
The AFW alliance asks brands and retailers to pay, as a minimum, the AFW benchmarks, which are based on a living wage calculation. In addition, the alliance asks corporations and MSIs to enter into dialoque with the AFW alliance.
Hopefully, brands takes it serious this time and do not come up with yet another round of excuses, like the last 15 years
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