National living wage workshop

Trade union leaders participating in a national workshop on the living wage organized by IndustriALL Global Union in Nicaragua reached agreement on a tentative living wage figure and on a plan of action to secure a living wage.  

The workshop, held in Managua on 19 to 20 October with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), brought together 65 participants from unions affiliated to the Confederación de Zona Franca and to IndustriALL’s affiliate FESITEX.

Participants highlighted how some of the leading companies in Nicaragua’s garment export industry, which produce for US retailers that pride themselves on innovation and efficiency, are paying barely 40 per cent of what the government thinks a family needs just to survive.

The CEO of one such retailer, which has revenues approaching 2 billion dollars this year, owns a whopping 12.5 million shares. In contrast, it would take the equivalent of a mere 60 shares a year to pull a worker out of poverty and enable her to earn a living wage.

One participant explained that after paying her rent, childcare and transport, all she could afford to feed herself, her growing 6-year old daughter and her teenage son for a week was seven pounds of rice, sugar, cooking oil, a couple of pounds of tomatoes, onions, two red peppers, six eggs, some pork rinds, cheese, tortillas, milk and a bar of soap. Buying school supplies at the start of the year meant working 48 hours of overtime for two weeks in a row.

Participants supported demands for brands to pay prices that allow suppliers to pay their workers a living wage, and for suppliers to uphold the right to organize and bargain collectively to allow unions to negotiate a living wage. 

They agreed on proposals for next steps, including:

• engaging with other unions in the sector on the living wage issue with a view to making the living wage a priority,
• finalizing an accurate and credible living wage figure and seeking support for that figure;
• adopting a union plan of action with targets aimed at securing a living wage through sectoral and workplace bargaining;
• using the living wage as an organizing issue; and
• seeking public support at national and international levels for the payment of a living wage in Nicaragua.