News & Press Releases - Living Wage now! 29 January 2019 Civil society in the Textile Alliance appeals to companies: Shows more commitment to living wages! Bonn/Berlin. Living wages are a key element of decent work. In the countries of the Global South, however, a large proportion of employees cannot live humanely on hard-earned wages. This also applies, and in particular, to employees in the textile and clothing industry. The Alliance for Sustainable Textiles, founded in 2014 on the initiative of Federal Development Minister Dr. Gerd Müller, has started to change this. The civil society organisations in the Textile Alliance are now calling on all members to follow their commitment to action and to step up their efforts to pay living wages. A core idea of the Textile Alliance is to achieve a stronger impact through joint coordinated commitment. For this purpose, so-called alliance initiatives are developed. For the core topic of living wages, an alliance initiative was developed, which initially starts in Cambodia. "We call on all members of the Textile Alliance who have clothing produced in Cambodia to participate ambitiously in the alliance initiative," says Dr. Sabine Ferenschild from the SÜDWIND Institute, representative of civil society in the steering committee of the Textile Alliance. It adds: "Particularly important is the cooperation of adidas, PUMA and Lidl. These companies are responsible for a significant proportion of clothing exports from Cambodia. Company members in the Textile Alliance who do not source clothing from Cambodia are invited to analyse their purchasing practices and launch further initiatives in their respective main producing countries. "There are no plausible reasons why a company should not participate in the proposed initiative. Now it's time to show the flag and join in!" appeals Berndt Hinzmann from the INKOTA network. By mid-February, the members must pledge their cooperation in the alliance initiative. "In Bangladesh, too, there were protests and unrest only last week due to the miserable wages," says Dr. Gisela Burckhardt of FEMNET. It's clear to everyone that something needs to change. The initiative of the Textile Alliance now offers everyone the opportunity to tackle this in a structured way and in cooperation with other companies. The start is now in Cambodia, but the protests in Bangladesh show that coordinated activities in other countries must follow. In order to create as many synergies as possible, the Textile Alliance has entered into a strategic cooperation with the Action, Collaboration, Transformation (ACT) initiative for the Alliance Initiative on Living Wages. The aim of this initiative, which was founded by large clothing companies and the global trade union federation IndustriALL, is the introduction of flat-rate collective agreements in the countries of global textile production. The idea behind it: Annual wage negotiations between trade unions and employers' organisations ensure a higher wage level and the strengthening of workers' representatives. Only when all companies that are members of the Textile Alliance devote themselves ambitiously to the issue of living wages, there is a prospect of a decent life for employees in the global textile and clothing industry. Contacts: Dr. Gisela Burckhardt, FEMNET, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel.: 0152 01774080 Dr. Sabine Ferenschild, SOUTH WIND Institute, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel: 0228 7636 9816 Berndt Hinzmann, INKOTA network, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel.: 0160 94 69 87 70 The Alliance for Sustainable Textiles is an initiative launched in 2014 by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development with the aim of continuously improving social, ecological and economic sustainability along the entire textile chain. More at: https://www.textilbuendnis.com/.18 civil society organisations are members of the Textile Alliance and are represented in the steering committee by the following three NGOs: FEMNET, INKOTA network, SOUTH WIND Institute. All three are also sponsors of the Clean Clothes Campaign.
