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Living wage,
produced by Labour Behind
the Label.
Contents
- Executive Summary
- The Clothes Trade in Britain
- The clothes retailers
- The clothes manufacturers
- Competition over labour costs
- Company Codes of Conduct
- What codes of conduct say about wages
- Minimum wage levels
1 Country Case studies
- Bulgaria
- China
- Indonesia
- Vietnam
- India
- UK
3 What is a Living Wage?
4 Who Pays for a Living Wage?
5 Labour Behind the Label's Campaign for a Living Wage
This report was produced by Labour Behind the Label.
The case studies are based on publications and research from the
Clean Clothes Campaigns (Netherlands and Germany); the Interfaith
Centre on Corporate Responsibility; CAFOD; IIED; the National Labor
Committee; Global Exchange; KFAT and National Group on Homeworking.
Additional research was commissioned by Labour Behind the Label
from Rohini Hensman and Bettina Musiolek.
Labour Behind the Label is the UK platform of the Europe-wide Clean
Clothes Campaign. It seeks to raise public awareness of conditions
in the global garment industry and to campaign for their improvement.
Members include CAFOD, Central America Women's Network, Ethical
Consumer, GMB, Homenet, KFAT, National Group on Homeworking, Oxfam,
Traidcraft Exchange, War on Want, Women Working Worldwide.
Labour Behind the Label
38 Exchange Street
Norwich NR2 1AX October 1999
Executive Summary
The garment industry is renowned for low wages and poor working
conditions. In spite of the fact that consumers are spending more
and more on clothes, there are few signs of improvement for workers.
In fact, the opposite is the case: downward pressure on wages means
that many garment workers find their weekly wage packet is not enough
to live on, in spite of the fact that they often work extremely
long hours.
Industrial restructuring and more open markets mean that the garment
industry is largely controlled by major retailers and brand-based
companies,
who manage a global network of suppliers. Choice of location is
largely determined by relative costs. In several Asian countries,
labour costs were found to be as low as 0.5% of the retail price.
Labour costs are reduced not only by relocation but also subcontracting
to smaller production units and homeworkers who are paid considerably
less than factory workers. In the UK, some homeworkers are still
being paid well below the legal minimum wage they are entitled to:
a machinist with 20 years' experience was found in July 1999 to
be sewing in pockets for 72p an hour. She had not had a pay increase
for 5 years.
Many clothing retailers, faced with increasing public pressure,
are
beginning to recognise that relocating and subcontracting do not
free them from their responsibilities with regard to working conditions.
Step number one has been for companies to formulate codes of conduct.
With very few exceptions, however, company codes of conduct state
that a company's suppliers should pay their workers the national
minimum wage or the local prevailing wage. These have been proved
to be inadequate in most cases.
Evidence from trade unions and human rights organisations tell us
of:
· workers having to work 5 and a half hours for a pound
of pork in Bulgaria;
· a legal minimum wage of between 6 and 17p per hour in China;
· a 15% increase in the minimum wage in Indonesia to cope
with an annual inflation rate of 70%;
· workers in the UK, particularly from ethnic minorities,
who are earning less than the minimum wage.
It is clear from the testimonies received by Labour Behind the
Label that many workers are not earning enough even for their basic
needs. The problems of defining exactly what is meant by a living
wage can be partly overcome by listening to workers themselves.
Labour Behind the Label is asking that companies:
· commit themselves to a living wage being paid to all workers
involved in the chain of production;
· pay suppliers a price which enables them to pay their workers
a living wage;
· ensure that workers have the opportunity to play their
part in determining what is acceptable as a living wage.
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