Nobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus has proposed an international minimum wage for garment workers to be worked out for each country separately.
The microcredit pioneer made the proposal in a keynote speech he presented at an international conference in Berlin on Thursday, said a Yunus Centre release on Saturday.
This wage, he proposed, should be accepted as a compliance issue, and should not be a subject of any price negotiation. “International buyers will accept this as part of production cost and make sure price negotiation should not have any impact on this wage in any country,” Yunus said.
The preparatory conference was held at the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance on addressing the issues raised in Bangladesh after the Rana Plaza tragedy.
Yunus Centre and the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance convened the programme to organise a global conference to launch Garment Industry Transparency Initiative (GITI) at the suggestion of Prof Yunus in the backdrop of Rana Plaza tragedy.
The conference started with the keynote speech from Prof Yunus where he highlighted the major issues relating to garment industry and proposed a comprehensive global initiative to solve these problems across all garment producing countries.
Yunus also elaborated his idea of creating social businesses to offer “Happy Workers Tags” at an additional cost of minimum of 10 percent on top of the production cost.
This money will be used by social businesses to deliver important social and health services for a specific period, to the specific group of workers who were involved in producing those garments, he viewed.
Professor Peter Eigen, founder of transparency international, responded positively to the suggestion made by Professor Yunus and took steps to create GITI, following the example of Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), the release said.
This approach is set out as a joint approach of governments, factory owners, labor, and the retailing companies, and the civil society in both producing and consuming countries. It will find an agreement among the involved parties with regard to comprehensive standards on labor conditions.
GITI does not intend want to compete with other initiatives, but rather support these and complement their actions. Founding of GITI is being carried out jointly by Yunus Centre in Dhaka, and the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance in Berlin.
The preparatory conference in Berlin was attended by 135 representatives from governments, NGOs, garment industries and labour associations.
Following Prof Yunus’ presentation, officials of ILO (International Labor Organization), FEMNET (Feminist Perspectives on Business, Politics and Society), the German Federal Foreign Office, Otto Group spoke on the idea of creating GITI, and the additionally it may bring in resolving the problems existing in the industry.
The preparatory conference ended with forming a six-member steering committee co-chaired by Prof Muhammad Yunus and Prof Peter Eigen.
It was decided to convene a formal launching event in Berlin on October 14 this year which will give officials from governments, international organisations, business sector, labour organisations, and civil society the opportunity to discuss the scope and lines of action of GITI in detail.
Source: UNBConnect
