How much money do you need to get by? How much covers food, rent, a train pass, car bills, and food and clothing for your kids? After all is said and spent, is there any left to put aside for a rainy day? In short, what is a living wage for you?
Workers across the world from Ritzy Brixton cinema to Cambodian garment factories, Baltimore hospitals and South African mines have recently been involved in strike action over a living wage. Global giants H&M and SSE have committed to work towards paying a living wage in their supply chains; activists are calling on Walmart, Gap and McDonald's to do the same. It is the defining issue in upcoming city council elections in towns across the western world in the UK, USA and Canada.
So just how much is a living wage?
The first step in every living wage battle across the world is to work out the answer to this question. In countries where there is a widely accepted, officially calculated living wage, workers and employers have a target point and they can start negotiating steps to get there.
Northumbria Police recently became an accredited Living Wage Employer, paying staff a minimum of £7.65 per hour. This figure was set by the Centre for Social Policy at Loughborough University, based on the basic cost of living in the UK outside London.
But there is no standard accepted living wage for farm workers in the regions where Fairtrade works. Agricultural workers in the countryside have quite different living costs from workers in the city so existing living wage benchmarks, for example for garment workers, don't translate for farmworkers. To fulfill Fairtrade's living wage commitments we need to calculate and agree rural living wages in the countries where we work.
We commissioned global experts Richard and Martha Anker to adapt their existing living wage methodology for rural workers. This is made up of three "baskets" of costs: nutritious food, decent housing, and other essential needs (medical, education, transport, etc.).
Workers themselves must give input on their costs. A proper living wage needs to reflect how farm workers live, showing a cost of living that employers, workers and their unions can consider realistic and use in collective bargaining.
So starting in South Africa, Fairtrade's producer support team set out to collect wine grape workers' actual costs in the country's Western Cape. They started by interviewing workers on Fairtrade certified wine farms about their daily costs, staple foods, housing situation, work benefits. They visited supermarkets, noting the prices of food within the local diet. They asked the municipality and architects about the cost of decent housing and checked statistics on average family size. They even called up the doctor to find out the cost of a medical check-up.
This data was added up according to the new rural living wage methodology. It revealed a new living wage for permanent workers of 111 rand (£6.20) per day, slightly above South Africa's minimum wage of 105 rand/day. For seasonal workers who have fewer benefits than permanent workers in terms of housing, meals and transport, the daily living wage is 144 rand (£7.80) per day, much more than what they are actually earning.
Following South Africa, we've worked to set living wages for the Dominican Republic, Malawi and Kenya so far. But it's not enough to work towards a living wage just on Fairtrade farms. If we want to really transform workers' wages we need to involve all levels of the supply chain from farm to shop floor.
Buyers, brands and retailers must recognise the issue and agree to work towards common living wage goals with their suppliers and trade unions. They need to help create the conditions under which employers in the south can bear the costs of paying their workers enough to live.
The unions representing the workers need to be involved to ensure that there is a net positive effect on workers and not just on corporate reputations, to prevent masses of people simply being replaced by less expensive machines.
We've been on the road to build a critical mass of support for the new living wage methodology and benchmarks. We've presented to Global Union Federations, governments, individual companies and industry coalitions, and to other voluntary standards organisations with whom we now form a living wage working group.
For it is only once living wage targets are agreed and supported that the even bigger work can begin: moving step by step, through collective bargaining at farm level and redistribution of costs up the supply chain, we must work together towards a living wage for the millions of workers on the other side of the world who produce the goods we buy and enjoy daily.
Find out more about Fairtrade's work on living wage here
Beyond wage levels, Fairtrade's Hired Labour standards seek to improve working conditions on farms, and Fairtrade premiums to enable workers to invest in their own programmes to improve their lives and their communities. Read about Fairtrade's approach to workers' rights here.
Wilbert Flinterman is senior advisor, workers' rights and trade union relations, Fairtrade International
Copy on this page is provided by Fairtrade Foundation supporter of the supply chain hub
