Femnet e.V.

This report demonstrates how the business model of fashion brands and the structure of global garment supply chains create and sustain poverty wages for garment workers. We explore how persistently low wages continue to be the foundation of the industry despite policy commitments to pay a living wage. Elements of supply chains that impact wage levels are: the indirect employment relationship with supply chain workers; the global race to the bottom on labour costs which suppress national minimum wage increases; and the unequal power relationship between brands and suppliers which allow brands to dictate the terms of production, often at the expense of suppliers.

Between August 2020 and February 2021, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) approached 16 brands for a response to allegations of unpaid wages and benefits (wage theft). All brands included in the report have policy commitments to ensure workers in their supply chain are paid. Ten go further and explicitly refer to aspirations to pay a living wage, with five of these brands members of the key voluntary initiative on living wage payment, Action Collaboration Transformation (ACT). Yet the existence of voluntary initiatives on living wages has failed to result in the payment of living wages to garment workers or even an increase in the wage level.

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In recent years, Ethiopia has launched a bold economic and social experiment by inviting the global garment industry to set up shop in the East African country. Drawn by newly built industrial parks and a range of financial incentives, manufacturers from some of the world’s best-known brands – among them, H&M and PVH (Calvin Klein, Izod, Tommy Hilfiger) – employ tens of thousands of Ethiopian workers in a nascent sector the government predicts will one day have billions of dollars in sales.

This report provides a close look at the flagship Hawassa Industrial Park, a vast and still only partly filled facility which currently employs 25,000 workers about 140 miles south of the capital of Addis Ababa. It examines the working conditions, including the very low wages, points at shortcomings and workers’ rights violations and formulates recommendations to the Ethiopian government as well as international brands.

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FEMNET begleitete die öffentlichen Ausschreibungen der Städte Bonn, Köln und Stuttgart für Dienstkleidung und Sicherheitsschuhe. Das Handbuch nimmt insbesondere die Nachweisführung für diese Produkte „unter die Lupe“: Gütezeichen sowie alternative Nachweiskontrollen werden im Detail vorgestellt.

Diese Broschüre richtet sich an Beschaffungsverantwortliche in Städten und großen Kommunen, die bei der Einführung und Weiterentwicklung einer fairen Beschaffungspraxis mitwirken.

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Vergabeverfahren bergen ihre Tücken. Das Einbinden von sozialen und ökologischen Mindeststandards macht die Sache oft nicht einfacher. Doch auch mit wenig Erfahrungswissen ist eine faire Vergabe machbar. FEMNET hat gemeinsam mit dem Rechtsanwalt André Siedenberg ein digitales Vergabetool und somit eine Online-Entscheidungshilfe für alle entwickelt, die fair(er) beschaffen wollen.

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The global garment and footwear industry relies heavily on the work of women, who represent up to 80% of its global workforce. The current living wage debate presents both opportunities and risks for the millions of women workers in this industry. A living wage is a central enabling human right: as such, it is a powerful tool not only to improve the working situation of women workers but also to create an environment in which they can realize their full capabilities. However, if the benchmark for a living wage is set too low, it risks cementing their current situation, in which they face poverty related gender-specific consequences and multiple burdens of work, including care work, and the challenges arising from income poverty, such as the need to work overtime, engage in multiple jobs, or search for the cheapest food, all of which result in absolute time poverty. This paper therefore argues that it is imperative to adopt a gender-sensitive approach in the living wage discourse, and to look at the implications that such an approach has on the methodology of calculating a living wage and on the measures to implement it.

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