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Recommendations for trade unions & workers' representatives involvement

How to participate in the Roadmap on Living Wages?

We recognise that freedom of association, collective bargaining and overall social dialogue at the workplace are key in order for wages to improve towards a living wage and beyond. 

Local organisations (including trade unions, governments and/or NGO’s) that calculate living wage benchmarks can apply to get IDH recognised if they meet the criteria.

We advise for an active participation of unions/workers representatives when companies fill and submit the Salary Matrix.

We advise HR to fill the Salary Matrix and to share it with unions/worker representatives for them to check the aggregated results.

Local unions/workers' representatives should be informed of how a living wage benchmark is selected as input to the Salary Matrix. As included in the ‘’Guidelines for verifying wages and living wage gaps’’, an active participation of unions/workers representatives is recommended during the Salary Matrix verification, including the verification of the in-kind benefits added into the Salary Matrix. 

Unions/workers' representatives should be involved in the discussions to improve wages.

We recommend that companies consider including projects that actively enhance social dialogue across their living wage work.

The living wage work should not limit local bargaining power or CBAs. Union org. could use the Salary Matrix in their toolkits to support unions Union organisations will be one of the targeted audiences to share learnings with.

Contacts

If you need assistance for connecting with union organisations in the countries where you operate or source from, please contact the following members of the Stakeholders Committee of the Roadmap on Living Wages.

Mondiaal FNV
CNV
Banana Link

Respecting Trade Union Rights in Global Value Chains: Practical Approaches for Businesses

Mondiaal FNV & Shift, 2019

“Businesses today recognize both the business and social imperative of respecting human rights throughout their global value chains. This includes the expectation that they respect core labour rights, including freedom of association and collective bargaining […] Yet, when it comes to taking action, many companies still struggle to identify and implement meaningful action to address identified risks to trade union rights in their global value chains.”

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