We believe in the global movement towards a living wage
Best&Less is passionate about working towards closing the gap between living wages and minimum wages and understand it will require multi-stakeholder collaboration to gain momentum. Steps we have taken include implementing:
- Zero tolerance approach to breaches to our code of conduct – this was completed in 2015
- Rules of trade e.g. audit and action program – this was completed in 2019
- Internal training of purchasing practices – completed in 2020
- Modern Slavery Act Reporting– 2019 and ongoing
- Developing tools and support to transition from minimum to living wages – for completion in 2023
- Ringfencing product negotiations by implementation of a PLM system to allow open costings and the use of a bill of materials across all styles – implementation started Dec 2020 and Completed Nov 2021.
Living Wage Statement
We are committed to paying living wages throughout our supply chain.
Best&Less define a living wage as remuneration earned in a standard work week (no more than 48 hours as a maximum) by a worker and be sufficient to afford a decent standard of living for the worker and her or his family. Elements of a decent standard of living include adequate nutritious food, housing, healthcare, clothing, transportation, energy, water, childcare, education, other essential needs including some discretionary money and provision for unexpected events.
A living wage should allow individuals to work and thereby lift themselves and their families out of poverty. We have adopted the benchmarks set by the Anker Living Wage Methodology in order to establish the living wage in regions where our suppliers are located. We are committed to working with our suppliers and other organisations to close any gaps identified within our supply chain.
We recognize that our factories pay legal minimum wages or higher and that is some countries there is a gap between minimum wages and living wages and we commit to working towards closing this gap.
Next steps:
- Develop and publish our roadmap to living wages and report on yearly progress.
- Conduct a wage gap analysis to identify the gaps between current wages and living wage benchmarks.
- Implement clear and measurable sourcing standards to reduce downward pressure on wages.
- Utilise software to collect data on living wages to enable us to see open costings which include a break up with labour rates which will assist us in wage gap analysis.
- Collaborate with brands, factory owners, managers, government and NGO’s to try to close any gaps we identify.