The downside of productivity and efficiency
The accepted definition of a living wage is one that enables workers and their families to meet their needs for nutritious food, water, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare and transport as well as providing for a discretionary income. Few if any garment workers in Asia enjoy such a wage, even when working excessive overtime hours.
The impact of excessive work and poverty wages on health, family life and communities cannot be overestimated which is why workers from China to Sri Lanka, Thailand to India and Cambodia to Bangladesh all tell us that increasing wages is their number one priority. Still, salaries in general remain low and wage levels are getting worse not better. Achieving a living wage for all workers is not an easy process. Defining what a living wage is and ensuring this wage actually gets to the workers are just two tricky issues involved in this process. Both could be addressed through union organising, but with union membership at below 1% in some countries this would be a slow process, even if trade unions weren’t opposed and repressed by the vast majority of employers.
Two distinct approaches to these problems are now being developed. Industry actors are focusing on improving the productivity of suppliers (whether factories, workshops or home workers). This means ensuring production is as efficient as possible, workers are well trained and production blockages and problems swiftly resolved. The idea is that by reducing waste and increasing the surplus value of the product itself, workers will be able to increase the wages they earn to levels commensurate with the cost of living.
The second approach comes from the workers’ side in the form of a new coalition to demand a floor wage across Asia. This will be used in coming years as an organizing tool to raise awareness of workers’ issues, strengthen union demands, lobby governments and challenge the race to the bottom that has eroded the value of workers’ wages over the last two decades
The 2008 report clearly stated that, although productivity programmes could have a place in supporting wage increases, they wouldn’t ever on their own be enough. Yet this year productivity continues to be the central feature of projects that brands are defining as ‘wage-focused’ work. Savings made through productivity improvements could be used to pay higher wages, but without proper union representation to demand that this is the case, savings could just as easily (and this is more likely) go into the employer’s pocket. Productivity also risks actually worsening conditions by increasing the work-rate, and thereby the mental and physical stress experienced by workers, and could result in fewer or different jobs.
The focus on productivity changes the emphasis and the nature of living wage projects. A living wage is a right guaranteed under human rights conventions and demanded by worker organisations. The priority is to ensure that living wages are being paid and that wage increases take place as soon as possible. Once these wages are being paid to workers it is up to the buyers and employers to work out how to cover the costs involved. If they can do this though productivity programmes, great!
The focus on productivity turns this logic on its head. By emphasising productivity as the key element of any wage programme, brands and retailers are signalling that they don’t really see a living wage as a right for garment workers.
Let’s be clear. Wages in the garment industry are not low because of poor productivity. They are low because the structure of the industry creates intense competition between brands and retailers, governments, employers and workers. They are low because governments are failing to protect the poorest members of society through the implementation of labour law. They are low because workers have been prevented from organising and making these demands. These are the root causes of poverty wages and these are the issues that need to be addressed by all concerned with the implementation of a living wage.
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