Campaigners criticise lack of living textile wages
Leading Swiss clothing and shoe retailers still don’t pay seamstresses enough to live on, according to a report by the Swiss-based Berne Declaration organisation. The group, which is part of the Clean Clothes Campaign, accuses the companies of a lack of transparency and progress.
About half of the 18 firms surveyed only gave standard answers to wage questions and failed to show what they are doing to secure living wages in their own production chains, the group criticises.
“Some of them provided even less information than for the Clean Clothes Campaign report in 2010,” a statement said.
None of them could show comprehensive efforts which would lead to the introduction of living wages for the factory workers, according to the NGO.
In the past, several Swiss retailers had said they were ready to engage in dialogue about the demand for a ten-cent wage increase for every T-shirt produced but remained “sceptical about the implementation”.
They said it was unlikely that the ten cents would actually go to the seamstress and that Switzerland was too small in the global production system to have any effect.
Small steps
The Berne Declaration does note some progress, saying two Swiss companies introduced a credible benchmark tool for the salaries based on the Asia Floor Wage (AFW) organisation’s suggestion of a living wage.
AFW is supported by about 70 unions, NGOs and scientists.
Another company is planning to create a special fund for the seamstresses fed by an additional 10 cents paid per textile product, which guarantees the increase goes directly to the workers.
The campaigners say the lack of living wages in the textile sector in Asian countries, as well as in eastern Europe, Turkey and North Africa, is one of the most serious problems facing the developing world.
There are an estimated 60 million people worldwide working in the textile and shoe producing sector.
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