A LIVING WAGE FOR GARMENT WORKERS
There are approximately 75 million garment workers worldwide and less than 2% earn a living wage. Our fashion and purchasing decisions impact the lives of women and girls across the world. Here at The Circle, we stand in solidarity and action with the millions of women garment workers who deserve a living wage. LEARN MORE
THE PROBLEM IS SYSTEMIC
98% of workers in the fashion industry are likely being held in systemic poverty and cannot meet their most basic needs. 75% of these workers are women between the ages of 18 and 24 (Fashion Revolution, 2017).
Wage theft, unsafe and insecure working conditions, poverty wages, abuse and violence are the reality for so many women working in the global fashion industry, particularly for those on the factory floor.
fashion is a feminist issue
The key to achieving this is through global legislation that gives every woman working in the garment industry rights to a living wage, safe conditions, and fair treatment from their employers.
At The Circle, we lead on developing precisely this global legislation to ensure the rights of women garment workers are enshrined in law throughout the world, and protected in future trade agreements.
We believe that the time is up on waiting for brands to do better. Women cannot continue to suffer for our fashion, it is time to change the game.
Sign our petition demanDing an End to poverty pay and abuse for women garment workers!
WE BELIEVE
Garment workers should no longer be:
- Denied their fundamental human rights
- Paid poverty wages that do not allow them to sustain a basic decent life but trap them in poverty
- Refused the fundamental rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association
GARMENT WORKERS SHOULD BE:
- Treated with dignity, fairness and respect by employers and by the companies who profit from the clothes they make
- Listened to when contracts are cancelled and factories close
- Entitled to have their needs met during crisis
WE COMMIT TO THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS TO CREATE A FAIRER FASHION WORLD
- Lobby the institutions of the EU to enshrine garment workers’ right to a living wage in law
- Raise awareness and amplify the voices of garment workers so that consumers understand the issues and are empowered to take action
- Raise funds to provide emergency support to garment workers facing destitution
- Ensure that garment workers across the world have the right to a living wage, protection at work, and the freedom to have their voices heard through collective bargaining and freedom of association
- End the exploitation of garment workers by working in coalition with organisations fighting for a fairer fashion world
STANDING IN SOLIDARITY WITH GARMENT WORKERS WORLDWIDE
We are calling time on the poverty wages paid to garment workers with an ambitious proposal to secure fair and living wages within the fashion industry’s global supply chains.
We look to the progress made in the EU and demand even better in the UK. Not only should living wages be recognised as a human right, but they should be legislated so that garment workers in supply chains are paid enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
REAL PEOPLE, REAL STORIES
watch a Fifteen-minute documentary showing the scale of the problem in fashion supply chains and the impact on women across the world. Produced by Circle Ambassador, Livia Firth and award-winning Director, Andrew Morgan.
hear from kalpona akter, leading activist who started work in a factory at age 12
The work this industry creates is not dignified as we don't have a living wage.
If my mum had received a wage we could live on, I wouldn't have had to toil in a factory from the age of 12.
READ OUR LIVING WAGE REPORTS
A Proposal for New EU Legislation on A Living Wage
In our most recent report, released in 2021, we set out a detailed legislative proposal aimed at reversing the “race to the bottom”. Our proposal targets the disincentive in the global labour market that means governments in garment producing countries don’t increase their statutory minimum wage levels, for fear of losing jobs to lower wage countries.
TOWARDS A LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR A LIVING WAGE
For this report, launched in 2019, we conducted an in-depth legal analysis of EU precedents that support living wage legislation, and from this developed an initial proposal for a living wage regulatory structure. The report and its findings were discussed by key stakeholders at the first UK Living Wage Symposium we convened in London on 8th November 2019.
THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO A LIVING WAGE
Developed in partnership with TrustLaw and the Clean Clothes Campaign, our 2017 report sets out the legal argument that a living wage is a fundamental human right that companies and governments have a responsibility to uphold. The report examines relevant labour regulations in fourteen major garment production countries, showing how statutory minimum wages in all fall far below a living wage.
DONATE
10
£10 could provide a counselling session to a woman in Pakistan who has suffered violence and abuse
20
£20 could help with emergency support with food and health parcel for three women in Sri Lanka
40
£40 could train one volunteer to support garment workers experiencing gender-based violence
1000
£1000 could provide legal support to a female garment worker to take a case of gender-based violence to the courts in Sri Lanka
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