How is “living wage” defined for Fair Trade Certified™ apparel?
We agree with the universally accepted definition of living wage: a wage that meets the basic needs of workers and their families. Basic needs include food, housing, education, transportation and health care. A living wage also provides for discretionary income and savings. To measure a living wage, the Fair Trade Certified™ apparel pilot uses methods and tools that have been researched and tested by nonprofits, wage experts, and workers rights advocates. For artisan sewing producers, the Fair Wage Guide by World of Good translates the Fair Trade pillar of a fair price into a time measurement for people who sew with a machine rather than sowing the land. See the Fair Wage Guide in action: http://www.fairtradecalculator.com/about.php For factory workers, the factory wages will be benchmarked against the “market basket formula” used by the Asia Floor Wage Alliance. It measures the local cost of food and other basic needs, and multiplies by the number of people in the family and the numbe
