Nanda Bergstein discussed Tchibo's approach to Living Wages and Freedom of Association in its worker/manager & producer/buyer WE program and in the new ACT project that aims to enable raises in wages and agreement of what a Living Wage is through collective bargaining, in a manner designed to raise wages that levels playing field where price competition has tended to press wages down. Amy Hall, Chair of the SAI AB and Director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher, and Alex Katz, SAI Manager of Stakeholder Research and Engagement, discussed SAI Living Wage projects. The SAI Living Wage project has already achieved agreement among half a dozen leading ESG standards groups on a definition of Living Wage and the sophisticated Anker methodology to calculate it.  Already an impressive group of academics in several countries including China have been trained and qualified in the Anker method, which includes extensive data collection and local stakeholder engagement, and are calculating Living Wage benchmarks in dozens of locations.  The benchmarks can be a starting point for dialog between workers, managers and stakeholders about wage levels and how companies can make progress towards Living Wage. Read more about SAI's Living Wage work below and learn more about our Living Wage webinar here.

Participants of the Training of Master Researchers workshop with Alex Katz, Senior Manager of Research & Stakeholder Engagement (back row, third from left) and Martha and Richard Anker (front row, third and fourth from left)

The Living Wage (LW) Coalition has made significant progress and is well on the way to begin a LW database. Richard and Martha Anker have written the training manual to calculate living wage benchmarks in rural and urban contexts. The manual, currently in draft form, is being used internally by the standard setting organizations and researchers of the LW working group. A finalized version will be publicly available.

A Training of Master Researchers workshop in Istanbul, Turkey has been completed. The five-day workshop trained eight qualified researchers on how to apply the Anker methodology. The impressive group members come from six countries: Brazil, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, India and China. These researchers will begin the long term goals of building a LW database for a wide number of countries. They will start with specific subject industries in each of the six countries to create a LW report.
 

The global benchmarks are steps in a long-term process to promote the living wage. Central to this process is the idea that benchmarks should be publicly available to be used by a range of actors, from worker organizations negotiating wages to businesses ensuring payment of a Living Wage throughout their supply chains. This includes local stakeholder engagement in calculating benchmarks and multi-stakeholder engagement on achieving payment of the Living Wage worldwide.
 

In Brazil, a researcher will document applications of the Anker Living Wage methodology and work towards calculating living wage benchmarks in a coffee producing area in Minas Gerais. In China, researchers will work in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou and Chengdu. In Ethiopia, researchers will focus on a cut flower producing area in the Ziway region. The focus area in Ghana will be a banana producing area in the Southern Volta region. In India, tea producing areas in rural Tamil Nadu and Kerala will be benchmarked. And lastly, in Tanzania, a researcher will work in a cut flower producing area in the Arusha area.  
 

An upcoming workshop in China is expected to train three more researchers, July 6 through July 9, 2015. The training will be hosted at Fudan University in Shanghai, China by Professor Yuan Cheng, to be conducted by Richard and Martha Anker. Upon completion of this workshop, five Chinese researchers will work on LW benchmarks in various urban regions in China where many factories are located.

The LW group is in search for a public facing database to host estimates and reports. The LW group aims for all estimates and reports to be made publically available for free.

 The LW group has received generous funding from a mix of both governments and corporations. The German and Dutch government agencies, BMZ and GDIS respectively, have contributed to implementing the Anker Living Wage methodology to calculate localized living wages and promoting the payment of living wages for workers. Three apparel companies, including Eileen Fisher, have funded the missions of the LW group. Additionally, the LW group has received in-kind donations of training space from Fudan University in Shanghai, China and the AKUT Institute in Istanbul, Turkey.
 

If you are interested in having an estimate done in a particular area, please contact Alex Katz at akatz@sa-intl.org 

SAI is pleased to share the release of HP's 2014 Living Progress Report.  HP, a SAI Signatory Member since 2012, has solidified its reputation as an industry leader in corporate social responsibility. This report recognizes HP's work with SAI in striving to improve human rights and sustainability within its supply chain.  

Noting contributions to multi-stakeholder initiatives, the 2014 Living Progress Report describes HP's participation in SAI's TenSquared program in Brazil:  
 

"In collaboration with Social Accountability International (SAI), The Rapid Results Institute, and Labor Link, HP conducted a 100-day program at three supplier sites in Brazil to reduce worker injuries from physically demanding work. Our supplier, Flextronics, reduced absenteeism due to injuries from 8% to 4.8% over the course of the program, producing tangible cost savings. Given this success, we plan to expand the program to China with a focus on emergency preparedness."
 

The Report also mentions HP's improvement in the Social Fingerprint Supply Chain evaluation, a requirement for all Signatory members:  
 

"Our supply chain management system is assessed every two years by Social Accountability International (SAI), against their rigorous, world-class Social Fingerprint benchmark. In 2014, we achieved a 15% improvement in our results compared to 2012." 
 

These efforts to continually improve social accountability emphasize HP's dedication to human rights and supply chain responsibility. Read the report to find out more here.
 

Rohini Barreto is the Director of Strategic Programs. She is responsible for designing, developing, marketing and implementing key SAI capacity building programs.

Ms. Barreto first discovered SAI while working at a company that collaborated with SAI. She decided to join the organization because of its commitment to human rights, as well as its "innovative work and amazing team." Like other members of SAI's staff, social justice has been important to Rohini for years. From a young age, she was involved in volunteering and felt the need to give back to her community. SAI appealed to her even more than other human rights-oriented organizations because she feels it is possible to see the direct impact of SAI's work. For instance, the team has been able to measure positive results from the launch of the TenSquared program in Brazil. Rohini finds this type of firsthand connection to SAI's impact gratifying, and this is what inspires her to continue at SAI each day.