The Ethical Trade Forums are expanding the scope of their recently created Producer Support Working Group with the launch of a specific section dedicated to living wages, which complements the already active work on absenteeism management.
This new section was created in response to the growing importance of living wages in social audits and, in particular, to the need for companies to understand how to address requirements such as selecting a living wage benchmark, analyzing the gap between current compensation and that benchmark, and developing improvement plans.
The purpose of the Working Group is to provide companies in the agri-food sector with practical tools and criteria to address this challenge by sharing experiences, analyzing the different benchmarks and methodologies available, and developing shared resources that can be useful to organizations. The group will operate from a collaborative and methodologically neutral approach, without establishing its own living wage or imposing a specific methodology.
Among the planned lines of work are a comparative analysis of living wage benchmarks applicable in Spain, the definition of criteria for conducting wage gap analyses that take into account total compensation and remuneration in kind, and the development of guidelines for creating wage improvement plans.
An initiative open to participation
The Ethical Trade Forums invite their associated companies and stakeholders to join this working group and contribute their experience and knowledge to a challenge that requires a shared vision.
Participation is particularly aimed at professionals in Human Resources, Sustainability, and Compliance, as well as companies in the agri-food sector, but it is also open to labor unions and worker representatives, NGOs and social organizations, agricultural associations, and experts in living wages, social auditing, and labor relations.
Participation will allow participants to share questions and real-life experiences, identify common needs, and help develop useful resources for the sector as a whole.
Those interested in participating can contact us at afce@foroscomercioetico.com for more information and to join this initiative.