The Aryavarth Express
Agency (New Delhi): The International Labour Organization’s (ILO’s) endorsement of the agreement on living wage has opened the door to new work to be accomplished to advance social justice. All stakeholders in the labour market, including governments and trade unions, must ensure the early implementation of the agreement to eliminate incidences of low wages that bog down workers by breeding poverty and thereby modern-day slavery making workers’ lives critically miserable.
The endorsement came on March 13, 2024 during the 350th Session of ILO’s Governing Body held at Geneva from March 4-14. The agreement was reached at the Meeting of Experts on Wage Policies held from February 19-23, 2024. The experts agreed that decent wages are central to economic and social development and to advance social justice. They also play an essential role in reducing poverty and inequality and ensuring a decent and dignified life.
It should be recalled that the phrase ‘living wage’ refers to “the wage level that is necessary to afford a decent standard of living for workers and their families, taking into account the country’s circumstances and calculated for the work performed during the normal hours of work.”
At its 349th Session (October–November 2023), the Governing Body had decided to convene a Meeting of Experts on wage policies, including living wages. The decision was taken following the second recurrent discussion on labour protection, which took place during the 111th Session of the International Labour Conference (2023), and which provided the Office with a mandate to contribute with “peer-reviewed research on concepts and estimations of living wages, as well as technical assistance to member States, upon request, in line with the 2022 resolution concerning the third recurrent discussion on employment, and on that basis a proposal to the Governing Body, for its consideration, for a tripartite follow-up discussion on wage policies, including living wages”.
The Meeting of Experts was composed of eight experts nominated by governments, eight experts nominated by the employers’ group and eight experts nominated by the workers’ group. Some of the experts were accompanied by advisors. The Meeting was chaired by independent Chairperson Zaskia Nathalie Cely of Ecuador. The Vice-Chairpersons were Matthias Thorns (Employer expert, Samsung), Plamen Dimitrov (Worker expert, Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria), and Charlotte Bernhard (Government expert from the Netherlands). There were also Government observers from 36 member states, representatives from the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
In addition, representatives of intergovernmental and international non-governmental organizations attended the meeting as observers. In terms of gender composition, 32 percent of the officers of the meeting, experts and advisors were women. Disaggregated by groups, 26 percent of employers, 33 percent of workers and 33 percent of government experts and advisors were women. In the case of observers from governments, intergovernmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations, 65.3 percent were women.
As per the agreement reached at the ILO, the estimation of living wages should follow a number of principles, including the usage of evidence-based methodologies and robust data, consultations with workers’ and employers’ organizations, transparency, public availability, and the consideration of regional and local contexts and socio-economic and cultural realities.
The document says living wages should be achieved through wage-setting processes that are in line with ILO principles. This includes strengthening social dialogue and collective bargaining and empowering wage-setting institutions. It also recalls that, “the needs of workers and their families and economic factors are the two pillars of wage-setting processes”.
“Living wages should not be a one-size-fits-all approach and should reflect local or regional differences within countries,” the document outlining details of the living wage agreement says, adding that a sustainable strategy to promote living wages, “should go beyond the realm of wage-setting mechanisms alone and include a broader consideration of factors.”
There has been a positive long-term global trend in average wages. Yet millions of workers worldwide – in both the formal and informal economies – continue to earn very low wages compared to the cost of living and live in poverty. These workers and their families are unable to afford healthy food, decent housing, medical care or schooling for their children.
The importance of the decision can only be understood in the background that wage policies have been a central subject of the ILO since its creation in 1919 as reflected in its Constitution, several of its Declarations and International labour standards. The preamble of the ILO Constitution calls for the provision of “an adequate living wage.” The Declaration of Philadelphia (1944) calls on the ILO to promote “policies in regard to wages and earnings, hours and other conditions of work calculated to ensure a just share of the fruits of progress to all, and a minimum living wage to all employed and in need of such protection”.
However, the world failed to realise it and we have now entered a “living wage” crisis. Globally, real wages have increased every year since 2006, until the decline in real wages in 2022 due to the sharp acceleration of price inflation. Millions of workers – in the formal and informal economy – across the world continue to earn very low wages and they are still living in poverty. (IPA Service)
By Dr. Gyan Pathak