1 million garment workers are now benefiting from the ‘Fair Living Wage strategy’ of Swedish fashion retailer H&M (Hennes & Mauritz AB). The programme was initiated by the clothier five years back in Berlin (Germany) at Living Wages in International Supply Chains Conference in 2013.
The fashion company believes that every garment worker must get a (fair) wage that is enough to live on and should be adequate to meet the basic needs of the worker and his family.
It is pertinent to mention here that H&M has teams in ten different apparel manufacturing nations that work closely with industry stakeholders and more than 650 units to find out better ways of operating as well as charting out conclusions on how to make work even more efficient while supporting the workers.
Under its plan, H&M engages with factory owners to help them understand the significance of well-functioning industrial relations as well as executing a fair wage management system. The brand also educates workers and management on their rights and responsibilities and make possible the democratic election of employee representatives via trade unions.
In 2017, 100 percent of the garment manufacturing facilities in Bangladesh that manufactures for H&M, conducted democratic election of worker representatives. All in all, 2,882 persons were elected and 40 person of those were women.
In the press statement issued, Anna Gedda, Head (Sustainability), H&M said, “I’m so proud of the dedicated work hundreds of colleagues around the world have done in these past five years. We’re doing something that nobody has ever done before. The results of our work in creating the foundation for fair living wages are exceeding our expectations, reaching close to a million garment workers.”
