09_Dialogue Meeting LW RT CoC 22032012.pdf
Report
Round Table Codes of Conduct
Dialogue-Meeting on “living wages”, March 22nd 2012 BMZ, Berlin - Stresemannstraße 94, 10936 Berlin
I. Background: Established in 2001, the Round Table Codes of Conduct (RT) is a multi-stakeholder forum with participation of private sector companies and associations, NGOs, trade unions and various German federal ministries. The secretariat of the RT lies with the GIZ programme bureau for social and environmental standards. The members of the RT aim to contribute to the increasing implementation of social standards and codes of conduct in development and threshold countries. In this context, the RT serves as a forum for dialogue and exchange of best practice and experiences; it furthermore develops own pilot projects exploring promising and innovative approaches for the implementation of social standards. Since 2010, the members of the RT increasingly discuss the issue of living wages in the supply chains of the private companies involved. Living wages have gained importance also on European and international level, a development supported by the ILO Decent Work Agenda as well as campaigning activities by various international operating NGO initiative such as the „Asian Floor Wage“ (AFW)campaign. The latter has particularly set the focus on the textile industry in Asia. These developments call upon the co-responsibility of multinational enterprises for the implementation of living wages in developing and threshold countries. While various standard systems and codes of conduct already seek to support private sector compliance and commitment (such as Social Accountability International, the Ethical Trading Initiative, Fair Wear Foundation, Business Social Compliance Initiative, Fair Labor Association), tackling the topic proves too complex to be tackled by one group of actors alone: In many producer countries the national minimum wages lie below the level of what is needed to secure peoples living. National governments often fail to push for the payment or a raise of minimum wages, expecting that stricter enforcement or raise of minimum wages would discourage foreign private investment and trigger relocation of production sites to other countries in the region. The lack of or insufficient freedom of coalition and bargaining furthermore makes it difficult to anchor social minimum standards such as living wages in these countries. On the other side, companies making an effort to take a pioneer role in paying living wages and attempt to balance off higher production cost through more supply chain efficiency and redistribution of the production cost along the supply chain have to expect disadvantages on the market. In 2011 the RT elaborated a joint action programme on living wages which targets to develop joint approaches for improving the payment of living wages in the Asian textile industry, incorporating challenges and chances for both private companies and producer countries. Instead of seeking solutions for each individual producer country, the focus for these joint approaches shall lie on the entire value chain of the respective products, hence take a sector-wide approach. On top of this, the efforts of the RT in that matter shall also include the support for local partners in determining living wages, also with view to the enforcement of trade union rights in these countries.
Stand: 2012-04-10
Erstellt von: DL
Seite 1
Report
II. Dialogue Meeting In the context of this joint action program, the RT organized a dialogue meeting on living wages on the 22nd of March, 2012, at the BMZ in Berlin. The event was planned to exchange best practices, to show the involved actors actual chances and limitations to encourage the payment of living wages and to jointly identify concrete steps how to further the implementation of living wages in the supply chains of the companies engaged in the RT. In preparation of the event, a joint stakeholder analysis with the working group of the RT that prepared the meeting and telephonic conversations with selected members on their perception of the issue at stake and their ideas for possible intervention points for the RT were conducted together with the facilitator of the meeting from the Collective Leadership Institute. From these preliminary conversations the following system of actors and factors impacting the implementation of living wages evolved:
Graphic by D. Läer (GIZ)
Agenda of the Meeting: 09:15
Inspirational Message; Mr. Juergen Zattler, BMZ
09:30
Overview over the day
09.45
Ensuring living wages: Where do we stand? Group work
10:30
Coffee break
10:45
Different perspectives on the issue of securing living wages Contributions by different stakeholder groups - Group work and discussion
Stand: 2012-04-10
Erstellt von: DL
Seite 2
Report 11:45
Living wages: factors influencing its realization. Input presentation by Doris Läer, GIZ
12:00
Realizing living wages: Working groups on strategic intervention possibilities
13:00
Lunch break
14:00
Reporting back from working groups
14:45
Consolidation of results: Identification of leverage points to be worked on jointly
15:45
Coffee/tea break
16:00
Joint approaches to realize living wages: the way forward
16:45
Outlook: next steps
II. Results of the Meeting: During the dialogue event, the participants’ discussions about achievements and perspectives for joint activities on living wages produced 4 thematic foci for intervention points and respective possible joint activities: 1.) Detailed mapping of the different levels of actors and the living wage-context for better identification of correlations and entry points for joint activities 2.) Outcome-focussed stakeholder processes in the producer countries (incl. NGOs, governments) 3.) Engaging government of developing countries 4.) Pre-competitive industry-driven interventions focussed on implementation.
The participants worked on these thematic foci in different working groups to define activities and processes to be undertaken to strengthen the implementation of living wages. Based on these discussions, the participants jointly agreed in a next step on the following departure points in order to approach the topic: •
•
•
Collect studies or analysis available on different product groups purchased in Asia: gather as much of the knowledge already available and extract lessons learnt to design and simulate business case scenarios for a number of supply chains. Engage a “coalition of the willing” (multi-stakeholder based, including companies that are willing to pay a living wage in a scalable model) to: o promote a business case for the implementation of living wages. o promote Asian Floor Wage as an acceptable benchmark for minimum wage regulations o encourage political level (e.g. European Commission, governments of other European countries) to get into discussion with national governments and promote Asian Floor Wage as a benchmark Set up/Build upon existing multi-stakeholder processes in producer countries to encourage the discussions on a local level (start with Bangladesh) with the objective of integrating relevant local actors proactively into the process,
Stand: 2012-04-10
Erstellt von: DL
Seite 3
Round Table Codes of Conduct
Dialogue-Meeting on “living wages”, March 22nd 2012 BMZ, Berlin - Stresemannstraße 94, 10936 Berlin
I. Background: Established in 2001, the Round Table Codes of Conduct (RT) is a multi-stakeholder forum with participation of private sector companies and associations, NGOs, trade unions and various German federal ministries. The secretariat of the RT lies with the GIZ programme bureau for social and environmental standards. The members of the RT aim to contribute to the increasing implementation of social standards and codes of conduct in development and threshold countries. In this context, the RT serves as a forum for dialogue and exchange of best practice and experiences; it furthermore develops own pilot projects exploring promising and innovative approaches for the implementation of social standards. Since 2010, the members of the RT increasingly discuss the issue of living wages in the supply chains of the private companies involved. Living wages have gained importance also on European and international level, a development supported by the ILO Decent Work Agenda as well as campaigning activities by various international operating NGO initiative such as the „Asian Floor Wage“ (AFW)campaign. The latter has particularly set the focus on the textile industry in Asia. These developments call upon the co-responsibility of multinational enterprises for the implementation of living wages in developing and threshold countries. While various standard systems and codes of conduct already seek to support private sector compliance and commitment (such as Social Accountability International, the Ethical Trading Initiative, Fair Wear Foundation, Business Social Compliance Initiative, Fair Labor Association), tackling the topic proves too complex to be tackled by one group of actors alone: In many producer countries the national minimum wages lie below the level of what is needed to secure peoples living. National governments often fail to push for the payment or a raise of minimum wages, expecting that stricter enforcement or raise of minimum wages would discourage foreign private investment and trigger relocation of production sites to other countries in the region. The lack of or insufficient freedom of coalition and bargaining furthermore makes it difficult to anchor social minimum standards such as living wages in these countries. On the other side, companies making an effort to take a pioneer role in paying living wages and attempt to balance off higher production cost through more supply chain efficiency and redistribution of the production cost along the supply chain have to expect disadvantages on the market. In 2011 the RT elaborated a joint action programme on living wages which targets to develop joint approaches for improving the payment of living wages in the Asian textile industry, incorporating challenges and chances for both private companies and producer countries. Instead of seeking solutions for each individual producer country, the focus for these joint approaches shall lie on the entire value chain of the respective products, hence take a sector-wide approach. On top of this, the efforts of the RT in that matter shall also include the support for local partners in determining living wages, also with view to the enforcement of trade union rights in these countries.
Stand: 2012-04-10
Erstellt von: DL
Seite 1
Report
II. Dialogue Meeting In the context of this joint action program, the RT organized a dialogue meeting on living wages on the 22nd of March, 2012, at the BMZ in Berlin. The event was planned to exchange best practices, to show the involved actors actual chances and limitations to encourage the payment of living wages and to jointly identify concrete steps how to further the implementation of living wages in the supply chains of the companies engaged in the RT. In preparation of the event, a joint stakeholder analysis with the working group of the RT that prepared the meeting and telephonic conversations with selected members on their perception of the issue at stake and their ideas for possible intervention points for the RT were conducted together with the facilitator of the meeting from the Collective Leadership Institute. From these preliminary conversations the following system of actors and factors impacting the implementation of living wages evolved:
Graphic by D. Läer (GIZ)
Agenda of the Meeting: 09:15
Inspirational Message; Mr. Juergen Zattler, BMZ
09:30
Overview over the day
09.45
Ensuring living wages: Where do we stand? Group work
10:30
Coffee break
10:45
Different perspectives on the issue of securing living wages Contributions by different stakeholder groups - Group work and discussion
Stand: 2012-04-10
Erstellt von: DL
Seite 2
Report 11:45
Living wages: factors influencing its realization. Input presentation by Doris Läer, GIZ
12:00
Realizing living wages: Working groups on strategic intervention possibilities
13:00
Lunch break
14:00
Reporting back from working groups
14:45
Consolidation of results: Identification of leverage points to be worked on jointly
15:45
Coffee/tea break
16:00
Joint approaches to realize living wages: the way forward
16:45
Outlook: next steps
II. Results of the Meeting: During the dialogue event, the participants’ discussions about achievements and perspectives for joint activities on living wages produced 4 thematic foci for intervention points and respective possible joint activities: 1.) Detailed mapping of the different levels of actors and the living wage-context for better identification of correlations and entry points for joint activities 2.) Outcome-focussed stakeholder processes in the producer countries (incl. NGOs, governments) 3.) Engaging government of developing countries 4.) Pre-competitive industry-driven interventions focussed on implementation.
The participants worked on these thematic foci in different working groups to define activities and processes to be undertaken to strengthen the implementation of living wages. Based on these discussions, the participants jointly agreed in a next step on the following departure points in order to approach the topic: •
•
•
Collect studies or analysis available on different product groups purchased in Asia: gather as much of the knowledge already available and extract lessons learnt to design and simulate business case scenarios for a number of supply chains. Engage a “coalition of the willing” (multi-stakeholder based, including companies that are willing to pay a living wage in a scalable model) to: o promote a business case for the implementation of living wages. o promote Asian Floor Wage as an acceptable benchmark for minimum wage regulations o encourage political level (e.g. European Commission, governments of other European countries) to get into discussion with national governments and promote Asian Floor Wage as a benchmark Set up/Build upon existing multi-stakeholder processes in producer countries to encourage the discussions on a local level (start with Bangladesh) with the objective of integrating relevant local actors proactively into the process,
Stand: 2012-04-10
Erstellt von: DL
Seite 3
