Clean Clothes Campaign and the Asia Floor Wage
Alliance have conducted a survey to discover how the sector of garment industry
works on workers’ wages. Companies have been interviewed and the results have
been processed and classified to identify how many brands nowadays can guarantee
a living wage to their workers, and not only a minimum wage.
In March 2014, Clean Clothes Campaign, an International alliance for garment industry, working for the
fundamental rights of workers and the improvement of their conditions, has made
a survey with the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, another international association that insists
on the right of a tailored wage for Asian workers. This project has been
created with the financial support of European Union.
Nowadays the well-being of millions of people
around the world depends on the global garment industry. We have to consider
that a serious problem is connected to this market area: brands like H&M,
Zara, Marks & Spencer and many others have their production factories in
countries where the cost of workforce and the labor cost are lower than in
industrialized countries. This allows companies to sell their goods at lower
prices but on the other side, to pay the employees less. In fact the majority
of workers in fashion industry are underpaid so they cannot afford to live with
dignity and satisfy their needs.
Clean Clothes Campaign has considered this
matter as a scandal so it has conducted this study because it believes that
none of the biggest multinational companies works ethically if their clothes
are manufactured by people who reach less than a living wage.
Please, remember that a living wage is a
human right (ICESCR, 1966): in this case, Clean Clothes Campaign affirms that
there is an evident violation of this right.
Despite this declaration, for most of the
world’s garment workers this right remains a utopia, because they receive only
a minimum wage, established by local governments. So, what is the
problem? Practically, the money earned by employees with a minimum wage, makes
them unable to face and satisfy their essential needs (food, clothes,
transport, pay the rent, medical care and education); this because the minimum wage is lower than
the living wage. This wide gap is in constantly growing. 
All these considerations constitute
the preamble of the survey and allow us to understand properly the contents,
the aims and the results.
1) First of all, let’s try to
understand how this study has been carried out.
The two alliances has contacted companies
between June and September 2013, for a
total of 50 enterprises, representing a mixture of fashion industry (sportswear,
supermarket retailers and also luxury fashion brands). They were asked to fill
in a questionnaire providing very practical, concrete information about
their work including, especially, wage benchmarks.
Some of them, 15 firms, didn’t fill in the survey,
despite having taken part to the project, but their profiles have been created
using publicly available information.
Once the information has been read and
processed, each company was recorded according to a list of criteria and a
profile of its progress regarding “living wage”. After having sent these
profiles to companies to verify that they were correct, firms were asked to
give a mark out of 10 for four categories that Clean Clothes Campaign thinks are
fundamental to show the responsibility about the right of a living wage. These
categories are: worker empowerment, commitment & practice, collaborative
approach, strategy.
2) The first aim of this survey was to
collect practical data on steps to discover
how companies in fashion industry guarantee a living wage (if they do it). In
addition, providing transparency for customers on this issue has been
fundamental.
3) Considering results: very few companies are
doing enough to guarantee a living wage, in fact, only 4 out of 50 were able to
demonstrate that they have started work to increase wages. The results have
been classified into different categories from the worst (BLACK) to the best
(GREEN) (see picture). But some limited progresses have been made: a number of companies is planning
to work on this issue and maybe, in the future, these plans will be realized
successfully.
Written by: Lisa Caimi, Giulia Pietroboni, Viero Serena
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