ASIA FLOOR WAGE STATEMENT ON MAY DAY

DATE: May 1, 2013

Stop Union Busting!

Decent Wage Now!

On May 1, 2013, Asia Floor Wage Alliance demands

1)     Immediate Stop to Attacks against Workers and Unions!

2)     Delivery of Living Wage to Garment Workers

Today is a Global Day of Action and Solidarity among workers worldwide!   Today, we celebrate the victories of the labour movement won through bloody struggles of workers in Chicago, USA in 1886 for an 8-hour day. 

But, we are also grimly reminded that laws won through such struggles will remain in books if workers do not continue to fight to implement them.

Top fashion Brands and Retailers in North America and Europe subject Asian garment workers every day to forced labour, wage theft, physical violence, poverty, and crippling malnutrition.  They profit huge revenues daily as workers manufacturing their goods in the most “modern” supplier factories in Asia, face heinous violations of labour rights and civil rights.

Garment workers in Asia are stopped from organizing a collective voice as they are terrorized, imprisoned, terminated and blacklisted for forming a union.

Garment workers in Asia suffer from severe malnutrition, poverty, deaths and broken families as they cannot earn a decent wage to maintain themselves or their families in dignity.

Garment workers in Asia are treated as disposable workers as they are illegally hired as “contract labour” or on “short-term contracts” for regular jobs that require decent, regular employment.

Today, garment workers across Asia unite to demand an immediate end to such inhuman practices and a living wage for an 8-hour work day!!

In 2009 a large Asian Alliance of unions and labour rights activists defined and calculated a floor wage (a minimum living wage) for Asian garment workers, which would guarantee that workers receive at least enough to meet basic needs for themselves and their families.   The Asia Floor Wage (AFW) campaign is a collective demand for a minimum living wage for Asian garment workers who manufacture the majority of the world’s clothing. 

The AFW Alliance urges global buyers to clean up their Global Supply Chain.  They must make decent work for garment workers a condition for sourcing.  They must factor in living wage demands into their price negotiations with suppliers.  We urge our government to stand with us, the working people, to ensure that brands and retailers work with our supplier factories to deliver living wage during a standard working day for garment workers and to halt all forms of stacks on unionization, which is a treasured international labour and human rights standard.

Asia Floor Wage secretariats:

International Coordinator, Anannya Bhattacharjee,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Southeast Asia Coordinator, Lee Siew Hwa,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

South Asia Coordinator, Irene Xavier,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

East Asia Coordinator, May Wong,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

*Asia Floor Wage is a minimum floor wage formula for Asian workers in the global garment supply chain – based on a family with food and non-food expenses.  It translates into different local currencies through the PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) conversion factor for each country. In 2012, the formula was set to be 540 PPP$. Visit www.asiafloorwage.org for more details.

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Click on the link or image below to sign the petition!

bit.ly/ZJcVbF