Asia Floor Wage
The campaign on the Asian Floor Wage (AFW) was initiated by the NTUI in 2006. It has reached a decisive stage, with a public international launch scheduled for 7 October 2009 on the occasion of the International Day of Decent Work. The campaign shall focus on the large international retailers Wal Mart, Carrefour, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, and others. It shall also focus on large global brands and large garment manufacturers in Asia. In India, apart from the NTUI, the AITUC, HMS and INTUC are participating in the AFW campaign.
The international launch of the Asia Floor Wage Campaign took place in New Delhi, India on October 6-7, 2009. Three seminars entitled, “Minimum Wage to Living Wage: Building a Strategy”, “Wage-led Growth as a Development Policy”, and “Human Rights Perspectives on Wage” were held on the first day with eminent economists and legal experts expressing their views on the relevance of the AFW campaign in the current situation. A report titled “Stitching a Decent Wage across borders- Asia Floor Wage proposal” was also released.
The discussions around an Asia Floor Wage began in 2006 in India, and subsequently spread to other parts of the world. It seeks to create a negotiating space and formulate a wage demand to bargain in a global industry, across the global supply chain where manufacturing takes place in the Global South and the value accumulates in the Global North.
With the developing of political consensus, the AFW campaign has now entered the public domain through the active participation of trade unions and labour organizations.
For more information please visit: http://www.asiafloorwage.org/