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WORKER EMPOWERMENT: COMMITMENT & PRACTICE: COLLABORATIVE APPROACH: STRATEGY:
TOTAL SCORE:
marks & spenCer
Brands: M&S Collection, Limited Collection, Per Una,
North Coast, Portfolio, Indigo Collection, Autograph, Classic,
Blue Harbour, Collezione, Savile Row Inspired, Big & Tall
Company posiTion on The living Wage:
“Our public commitment on living wages is detailed in our Plan A commitment 17.1: ‘Implement a process to ensure our clothing suppliers are able to pay a fair living wage in the least developed countries we source from, starting with Bangladesh India and Sri Lanka by 2015.’”
WhaT We say:
Marks & Spencer (M&S) is undertaking significant work to make sure that the prices it pays are enough to ensure the basic needs of its workers are met. The company’s ‘Plan A’ commitment to pay a living wage is commendable. M&S has yet to disclose the figures it is using to benchmark a living wage and much of its model relies heavily on purchasing practices – without real data we remain unsure about the real progress being made.
in more deTail:
Has living-wage benchmarks? Yes, but refuses to disclose these.
Worker empowerment: M&S says: “Our training commitment 17.2 ‘to work with our suppliers and partners to provide a training and education programme for 500,000 workers by 2015 covers employees roles, responsibilities and rights…’ We have included specific sections to cover freedom of association and collective bargaining in our training modules: Induction training; Rights roles and responsibilities; and our Effective Worker & Management communication programmes. To date over 391,000 workers from around the world have been trained.”
Training programmes have followed different models in different countries:
India: “... we have developed the Effective Worker Management (EWM) Programme. This programme includes a Freedom of Association module and focuses on creating a conducive environment for exercising rights. This is implemented by the Centre for Responsible Business... GIZ India.” This also was delivered in Bangladesh – 38 factories were reached. Bangladesh: “... we have rolled out the Ethical Model Factory (EMF) programme which includes Worker Rights training and HR systems and Industrial Relations Management training for middle management and HR personnel.” This programme also focuses on productivity training and industrial engineering, and has seen a wage increase of 12-42% in participating factories. Bangladesh and India: “... the Benefits for Business and Workers (BBW) project ... includes a training module focused on the importance of worker/ management dialogue.”
Turkey and Egypt: A workplace-communication training programme with Partner Africa was cited: “This is a two day course explaining the importance of workplace communication and uses experiences from leading ethical suppliers to illustrate mechanisms for improving workplace communication. A DVD is used to support the training, highlighting how welfare committees and unions have improved communication between management and workers within leading companies.”
M&S has worker hotlines in China for workers to express grievances. It is also trialling a mobile-phone feedback mechanism: “Using mobile technology, we are carrying out quantitative surveys direct to workers. Workers listen to questions on their mobile phones in a local language, and respond using their touch-tone keypad. This returns anonymous results ... we have already tested the technology with 13 suppliers in India and Sri Lanka, surveying over 2,000 workers ... we will now roll out the service to 30 factories and 22,500 workers in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, gathering feedback on subjects such as working conditions, job satisfaction and training.”
Commitment and practices:
M&S says: “For the last 5 Years we have been using a costing model within our buying practices which breaks down the cost price of garments into every area and specifies Direct and Indirect Labour costs. We have been implementing our cost price model across our supply base in 14 global sourcing countries. The model identifies
and ring fences the actual labour cost during cost price negotiations. It is based on standard minute values, actual work-study minutes taken, efficiency as well as, cost of living and a theoretical wage calculation.”
M&S calculates the living wage using the following methodology: “Living Wage = (Basic Food Basket per Person) x (1/Fraction of Average Household Income Spent on Food) x (Household Size/Number of Wage Earners) x 1.
To collect the information required to apply the above formula, for each area in which we carry out living wage research, we: Surveyed 20 individuals living and working around the factory. Respondents represented a cross-section of the community including factory workers, owners of stalls and small businesses in the area, retired people, housewives etc.
Surveys focused on Household Size; Number of Wage Earners; Contents and cost of an essential food basket; Fraction of average household income spent on food.”
M&S also uses wage ladders, updated each year by Impactt Ltd., to monitor progress.
On purchasing practices, it says: “...we have developed a process which awards outstanding factories the status of ‘Ethical Excellence’. The process identifies factories which demonstrate world class working conditions and that they pay living wages. This is motivated in the business as the buying teams annual bonus is measured against how many Ethical Excellence factories they have used – this is really driving factories to increase pay to meet this target.”
Collaborative approach: The Ethical Model Factories Programme, Benefits for Business and Workers (BBW) programme and involvement in a piece of research on ‘Capturing the Gains’ were cited. The BBW programme is a collaborative piece of work involving Impactt, the Department for International Development and eight other brands.
M&S has also been working on a piece of ‘financial inclusion’ work, where it has provided training to workers in India about savings and the use of bank accounts: “With M&S, geosansar has completed some 60 financial inclusion training programmes inside factories supplying us. This has resulted in educating some 10, unbanked workers directly and a further 3,000 indirectly. Approx. 4,500 workers have gone onto open bank accounts and the conversion rate is growing.”
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