What is a minimum to live: ILO context and instruments

By Bart Verstraeten, WSM Political Secretary

Since the 19th century, the idea that labour is not a mere commodity that can be owned, traded or exploited like any other raw material, has gained ground. This basically means that labour has to be rewarded, that workers had to be remunerated for their hard work. The most common way of doing so is by paying them a wage.

Most prominently, this idea was incorporated in the ILO Constitution which entrusts the ILO to promote “policies  in  regard  to  wages  and  earnings [….] to ensure a just share of the fruits of progress to all, and a minimum living wage to all employed and in need of such protection”.

Over the years, the ILO developed several international labour standards on this topic. The standards offering the broadest protection in that regard are Convention 131 (C131) and Recommendation 135 on minimum wage fixing, adopted in 1970. Key features of these 2 standards are:

• Governments are required to put in place and maintain specific machinery to fix minimum wages and to adjust them periodically.
• Representative organisations of workers and employers have to be involved in this minimum wage fixing machinery.
• Minimum wages have the force of law.

How to compare minimum wages

Let’s look at two countries: the minimum wage for an hour in Belgium is almost 9 €, in Nepal it is 34 €ocents, 26 times less. But is life not much cheaper in Nepal than in Belgium? So let us compare in PPP (Purchasing Power Parity), a fictional currency which compares currencies through a basket of standard products. In Belgium, minimum hourly wage would be 10,31PPP and in Nepal 1,21PPP. Not as huge a difference, but still 8.5 times less, especially if one considers that many Nepalese are paid less than the minimum wage, while many Belgians earn more than the minimum wage (Belgians on average earn 22 €/hour).

Strength in numbers

463,000 years: that is how long a worker would have to work to have the same annual income of the CEO of the French company LVMH, Bernard Arnault. And in 2007, the 200 workers of this factory Ecce based in France, were fired because the company shifted production to countries with lower salaries. Whose salary should be lowered though?

Quote from 1933 on meaning of living wages

“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.... By living wages, I mean more than the bare subsistence level - I mean the wages of a decent living."

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Statement on the National Industrial Recovery Act, 16 June 1933

Help save Philippino Hospital

11 critical days are left to save Fabella Hospital before the new President Duterte take over the administration from leaving President Aquino.

WSM partner Alliance of Health Workers (AHW), health workers, patients and the community continue its mobilisation. Inside the world's busiest maternity ward where 100 babies are born every day:

• 300 mothers arrive at the Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital each day;
• The hospital serves a Manila slum named Tondo, built on a rubbish dump;
• Mothers share a delivery room with at least five other birthing women;
• Head midwife Anna Prebus has delivered around 200,000 babies;
• New babies and their mothers sleep five or more to a bed;
• Hospital is the subject of new BBC documentary World's Busiest Maternity Ward

Read more here at the Daily Mail or watch this video.

Video on exchange regarding elderly in Belgium and Bangladesh: GK meets OKRA

In this video, you can see how enriching international exchange can be. In May 2016, 4 representatives of health care organization GK from Bangladesh came to Belgium for an exchange week with OKRA, the elderly movement of the Christian Workers Movement in Belgium.


They exchanged on how to make sure elderly people get what they deserve (ex. a decent pension, access to health care, etc.) and on how to organize the elderly.

Find out in this video what they learned from this experience.

W-Connect Latest edition: on Decent Living Income

We don’t live to work, we work to live. This saying sums up a lot of what we deal with in this edition of the W-Connect newsletter, which focuses on a decent living income. Or living wage. Or just or fair wages. No matter the term, no matter the way of calculating it or which formula you apply, I think we should all agree, we work to live and not the other way around. Unfortunately, it is a far stretch from today’s reality. Many work very hard and struggle to simply survive, not even to live decently.  When it becomes a luxury not only to buy a pair of decent shoes, but to buy food or shelter. And what about spending time with your family, to help your children with homework, or take them for ice-cream. Many are only surviving, getting the minimum out of life.

Legally set, the minimum wages are often too low in Asia to live decently. In 19 out of the 26 states in India, minimum wages (of which there are 1.200, as they differ per sector, per state and between urban and rural areas) are even below the poverty line, let alone any decent living income, as was researched by the WSM partners.

This edition also looks closer at the garment sector, which can be key for the struggle for decent living incomes. It employs 25 million workers in more than 100 countries and in 2013, apparel trade amounted to 460.27 billion dollars, with more than 60% of it originating from 10 Asian countries. Out of the top ten world garment exporters in 2013, seven were from Asia. In the region, China, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Cambodia have covered the bulk of garment production in the last decade. Bangladesh became the second largest producer of garments after China because of its lowest wages for 4 million workers. A race to the bottom which should become a climb to the top, by guaranteeing decent living incomes to all workers, in Asia as around the world. This was already understood in 1948, as article 23 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and for his family an existence worthy of human dignity."

How much longer till this becomes reality?

Download the full version here.

Asia Floor Wage Alliance presents its first documentary: Living Wage Now!

The 105th International Labour Conference gets underway

The 105th International Labour Conference gets underway in Geneva, Switzerland from 30 May to 10 June. This year's session brings together over 4,000 delegates from around the globe to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world of work today. Youth employment, global supply chains and decent work in fragile states will all be high on the agenda.


On behalf of WSM, Bart Verstraeten will attend among others. Together with Bart Vannetelbosch (Central Supply and Services) and several of our partners we are going to the Commission to examine how to ensure decent work in global supply chains. We all know the challenges of the supply chain: the workers in the textile sector who receive poor wages or lose their jobs when they are pregnant; workers in the free trade zones that can not organize or become members of trade unions; miners without contracts, without social protection.

This commission has the mandate to conduct a general debate, that is to say:
- To gather the views of the ILO tripartite stakeholders;
- Determine a new mandate for the ILO in this area.

Fortunately, we had the opportunity to prepare with our partners in the international seminar organized by KSBSI and ACV-CSC in Jakarta in late April. At the end of our seminar, we adopted a final document which comprises our claims (here). Some of these claims will be the basis of our advocacy in the coming days.

And when we say "our" advocacy, we refer to our great delegation. With ACV-CSC colleagues, IYCW, WSM, CCC, KSBSI, CLTM Indonesia and Mauritania, and other colleagues and partners who are coming, hopefully we can influence discussions.

SAARC delegates for collective bargaining on labour migration

The WSM partners from South Asia have been advocating a joint position on labour migration, also through SARTUC, to get a collective bargaining on labour migration. Some progress is being made, as the Nepali newspaper My Republica reported this today:
With the aim of raising collective issues pertaining to labor migration and forming a common labor law to protect the rights of migrant workers from the region, officials from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have gathered in Kathmandu for the first time.

The government officials of the SAARC-member states and various stakeholders aim to set up a regional-level mechanism in order to assist in dealing with major labor migration issues.
Nepal had formulated a draft for setting up such mechanism after the 18th SAARC Summit that was held in Kathmandu. The member states of the SAARC during the summit had agreed to collaborate and cooperate for proper management of labor migration from South Asia.

Clean Clothes Campaign puts out fires at H&M shop in Belgium

Foto: Jürgen Doom

Terwijl de aandeelhouders van H&M vandaag verzamelen in Stockholm, roept de Schone Kleren Campagne het bedrijf op om meer vaart te zetten achter de noodzakelijke renovaties in de fabrieken in Bangladesh die H&M bevoorraden. Activisten van de Schone Kleren Campagne voerden een veiligheidscontrole uit in het H&M-filiaal in Leuven en overhandigden een brandblusapparaat aan het management. Gelijkaardige acties gebeurden in 27 steden wereldwijd.

Drie jaar nadat H&M als eerste bedrijf het Bangladesh Akkoord voor gebouw- en brandveiligheid ondertekende, staan bijna al hun leveranciers achter op schema om renovaties uit te voeren. De internationale Schone Kleren Campagne en drie andere ngo’s hebben gisteren een update gepubliceerd van een eerder rapport  over de vertraging in de veiligheidsrenovaties bij 32 van H&M’s strategische Bengaalse leveranciers. Ook de vooruitgang bij 22 bijkomende strategische leveranciers werd onderzocht.

Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat bij 70% van hun 54 strategische leveranciers, nog niet alle branddeuren geïnstalleerd werden die een veilige uitweg garanderen aan werknemers in geval van brand. Daardoor kan een brand catastrofale gevolgen hebben, zoals de brand bij Garib & Garib zes jaar geleden, waarbij 21 werknemers die kleren stikten voor H&M omkwamen. Dat percentage is zelfs hoger dan bij de vorige update in januari, omdat sindsdien nog meer deadlines verstreken zijn. Andere renovaties werden afgekeurd door de inspecteurs van het Akkoord.

Cambodian trade union law passes

The voting on the law in the Cambodian Parliament took place today. Very regrettably, the law was passed unchanged, despite increasing criticism. All 67 deputies present from the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) supported it and the 31 opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) delegates voted against it.

There are now rapidly growing numbers of media reporting on the fact that the law has been passed as well as growing coverage of the peaceful protests, met by violence, that took place close to the National Assembly.

National media:

• Violence as Assembly Passes Trade Union Law
• Trade union law passes

International media:

• Radio Free Asia 
• Asia Pacific Daily
• Bangkok Post 
• Reuters 
• Daily Mail (UK) 

See also LICADHO's Facebook. ILO made this statement on the Trade Union Law after the National Assembly's decision.

Open letter to all brands sourcing from Cambodia

Clean Clothes Campaign published an open letter to all brands in Cambodia to publicly support freedom of association and independent unions in Cambodia. We call upon the brands, representatives for H&M, Inditex, C&A, Levi Strauss, Marks & Spencer, Tchibo, Primark and other brands to widely disseminate a public support statement, for a Trade Union Law which fully complies with ILO Conventions 87 and 98 as a condition for future sourcing from the country.

H&M have already issued a statement supporting the demand, as well as Tchibo, hopefully other brands will soon follow.

If you're an individual, please share this post. If you're a member of an organisation, please check whether your organisation can also sign the letter. If so, contact the press contacts below.

Open letter to all brands sourcing from Cambodia:

Dear brands,

As you know the Cambodian government is currently drafting a new Trade Union Law aimed at regulating the Kingdom’s 3,400 trade unions. Concerns around the draft Law are growing as the current proposal is not in compliance with ILO conventions 87 (Freedom of association and protection of the right to organize) and 98 (Right to organize and collective bargaining), both ratified by Cambodia. Based on the recommended amendments of the Joint Committee formed to review the draft law, articles and provisions that infringe freedom of association and trade union autonomy are maintained in the final draft bill. A number of trade unions and human rights organisations have approached the Cambodian Government with their concerns and recommendations to the law.

After the Brussels attack

Several have written to us, to express their horror after the explosions in Brussels, in which two bombs at the airport killed 14 people and wounded around hundred people. It was followed an hour later by a bomb that went off at Maelbeek station, killing at least 20 and again injuring around a hundred people.

As these things are meant to inspire terror, incomprehension and anger in the population, please find below a short text the Christian Movement has released.


Three points.

No more.

Because there are no words for what happened to us the last few days.

Because it is incomprehensible.

Because we are insecure themselves.



We had hoped that this would never happen. That no one would be subjected to barbaric killings on the subway and at the airport. But it happened. And how difficult it may be now to understand or place these attacks, while we are so shocked, silence is today not an option for anyone. We owe it to ourselves to condemn in the strongest possible terms from such cowardly terrorist acts. We express our regrets to the families of the innocent victims, people who simply did their best to make something of their lives and for their loved ones.

 The perpetrators of the attacks and their supporters want to sow fear in our society. But if we are guided by that fear, then we submit and give in to them. Fear also leads to selfishness and hatred, fear leads to a society where we do not want to live.

The perpetrators and their supporters want to make every human and democratic answer to social problems impossible. It is our duty, the duty of people and social organizations, to indeed continue looking for and finding those answers.

We should not be gullible. We should not only look to shape our society in this 'after 22/03', we must seek answers to the question how we deal with the culture of fear that aims to disrupt our society and how we deal with people who, in the name of religion, place themselves outside of society.

 Today it is necessary for everyone, countries, individuals and organizations, to strongly condemn this violence and affirm their belief in democracy and human values. Not only in words but also in deeds and actions through which we unite. Only then, and only together we can shape a society in which violence can claim no place. And only if, and only together, can we keep the dictatorship of fear outside.