H&M to pay 850,000 textile workers a ‘living wage’
26/11/2013
H&M has worked on new vision to address wages the best way following the collapse of the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,000 textile workers last April. While H&M did not source from the factory, it does source textiles and apparel from the country.
“It has always been our vision that all textile workers should be able to live on their wage,” the company said in a statement. “We believe that the wage development, driven by governments in some countries, is taking too long, so we want to take further action and encourage the whole industry to follow. With size comes responsibility and we have the ability to contribute to change.”
The roadmap addresses wages, purchasing practices, supplier practices and workers’ rights to government responsibility.
“Our new roadmap is based on our vision that a fair living wage covering workers basic needs should be paid by all our commercial goods suppliers. This should be enabled through H&M’s purchasing practices, and based on a skilled workforce that have their wages negotiated and annually reviewed, involving democratically elected trade unions or worker representative.”
Helena Helmersson, global head of sustainability at H&M, made the announcement at the first Living Wage in International Supply Chains conference, organised by the French and German governments and held yesterday in Berlin.
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