Why brands need to commit to living wages

The report highlights the widespread problem of poverty wages in the textile industry, which can have severe implications for workers’ health and wellbeing. While minimum wages are a legal requirement in many countries, this is often not enough to provide a decent standard of living for workers. Brands need to take responsibility and commit to providing living wages to enable workers to earn a viable income and ensure positive long-term supplier relationships that can improve productivity and quality.

Recommendations for brands

The report provides nine recommendations for brands to ensure they are offering living wages to workers in their supply chain. These include:

• Expressing publicly a commitment to embedding living wages in the ways the business operates, including developing and sharing a roadmap to living wages.
• Compiling information on wage policies and practices of the supply chain to identify wage gaps and human rights risks.
• Ensure and if necessary, facilitate, meaningful and transparent discussion and negotiation between workers and management to agree on plans to achieve a living wage.
• Adopting an existing living wage benchmark or calculate a living wage using established methodologies based on a low-cost nutritious diet that meets World Health Organisation recommendations.
• Supplying regular public updates on the roadmap to living wage target with clear milestones and timelines.

Getting to living wage

The report suggests several pathways for brands to achieve living wages in their supply chain. One suggestion is to pilot and scale successful approaches to enable widespread adoption. Collaborating with relevant stakeholders such as trade unions and advocacy groups, as well as advocating for higher national minimum wages, can also help brands to achieve living wages. The report recommends that brands should also use productivity improvements such as worker training to improve overall efficiency.

Strengthening minimum wages

The report highlights the importance of fair minimum wages in providing decent wages. Many countries have minimum wage policies that are either too low or not enforced, leading to widespread poverty wages. The report recommends that brands should engage with governments to ensure they are implementing fair minimum wage policies. This can help provide a clear baseline for all workers to achieve decent wages.

Ensuring effective management

The report highlights the importance of ensuring effective supply chain management to ensure effective due diligence and remediation processes. Brands should be collaborating closely with suppliers and any investigation should be multidisciplinary. A grievance mechanism should also be established and communicated effectively with workers to provide recourse for any issues raised by workers. This process should be transparent, predictable and equitable. Brands should also ensure that pricing policies facilitate payment of living wages at a minimum and that labour costs are calculated accurately.

Conclusion

Living wages are critical to ensuring that workers have decent standards of living and escape poverty. Brands can take several measures to achieve living wages, including collaborating with stakeholders, adopting living wage benchmarks, and regularly updating their progress publicly. The report recommends that brands ensure effective supply chain management to ensure that due diligence and remediation processes are in place.

Encouraging the implementation of fair minimum wages is another vital step towards ensuring there is a baseline for a decent standard of living for all workers in the industry.