WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE?

According to the Global Living Wage Coalition (GLWC), a living wage is the pay a worker should receive for a standard workweek to ensure they and their family can maintain a decent standard of living. Elements of a decent standard of living include food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transportation, clothing, and other essential needs, including provision for unexpected events. This wage will differ across regions as calculations are dependent on local costs of living.

It is important to understand the difference between a minimum wage and a living wage. A minimum wage is set by the government, and it is the lowest remuneration employers can legally pay their employees. In many parts of the world, the minimum wage remains well under a living wage.

WHERE WE ARE

According to the 2022 Baptist World Aid Ethical Fashion Report, just 10% of fashion brands pay their factory workers a living wage.

We believe every worker has the right to fair compensation and a living wage. Bared Footwear has commenced work to implement living wages in our supply chain through our bimonthly Living Wage Audit Program.

We have worked in collaboration with Intertek, a global leader in auditing and quality assurance, to develop the Living Wage Audit Program, a first-of-its-kind program that takes a holistic, risk-based approach. This program involves bimonthly audits on our major suppliers to ensure true transparency on workers’ wages, hours, and conditions. Our objective with this program is to ensure all workers in our supply chain receive a living wage.

Currently, 91.5% of our tier 1 factory workers (the actual people who construct our shoes!) are paid a living wage and 100% are paid above the legal minimum wage.

WHERE WE ARE HEADING

We are committed to supporting the implementation of living wages to drive industry change. Through our audits, we aim to validate that all our tier 1 workers are paid a living wage. Ideally, we would like to extend the scope of our Living Wage audits into tier 2 as we gain further insight into our supply chain.