Our Vision
Workers around the world can afford a decent life for themselves and their families.
Our Mission
Provide high quality and consistent knowledge and information about living wage levels, implementation, and impact necessary for stakeholders of all types to collaborate in a non-competitive environment toward wage increases globally.
Who We Are
The Global Living Wage Coalition brings together Fairtrade International, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), GoodWeave International, the Rainforest Alliance, the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), and Social Accountability International (SAI), in partnership with the ISEAL Alliance and international living wage experts Dr. Richard Anker and Ms. Martha Anker. The GLWC comes together with the shared mission to see continuous improvements in workers’ wages in the farms, factories, and supply chains participating in their respective certification systems and beyond, and with the long term goal for workers to be paid a living wage. Each living wage benchmark commissioned by the GLWC is made public to further this aim and to increase the opportunity for collaboration toward payment of a living wage. Learn more about the Global Living Wage Coalition’s members and partners.
What We Do
The Global Living Wage Coalition (GLWC) aims to develop living wage benchmark estimates in many countries based on a single definition and methodology to calculate living wage, and as a critical step to enable industries and companies to move towards paying a living wage. The GLWC is working together with Richard Anker and Martha Anker to benchmark living wage levels in all areas covered by our standards and beyond, using a methodology they have developed to measure living wages.
We see the calculation and publication of living wage benchmarks as the first step in a long-term process towards achieving wages that will help workers escape poverty. Objective living wage benchmarks are instrumental to the collaborative efforts of retailers, buyers, producers, and trade unions to make a living wage a reality. Our organisations are firmly committed to this process.
Living Wage Defined
In order to work together on living wage, it is important to share an understanding of what a living wage is. A 2011 International Labour Organization (ILO) review revealed that there is a general consensus on the definition of living wage (R. Anker, Estimating a Living Wage: A Methodological Review, ILO 2011). Drawing on this report and in consultation with experts, the Global Living Wage Coalition has adopted a common definition for living wage.
For more information on the work of the Global Living Wage Coalition, contact Michelle Bhattacharyya, Global Living Wage Coalition coordinator at michelle@globallivingwage.org.
The creation of this portal was possible thanks to a grant from the ISEAL Innovations Fund, which is supported by:
