Fair Wages Study

What is a sufficient wage to cover basic needs and reasonable savings and expenditure?

To begin investigating this question, we commissioned an NGO to carry out a pilot project on fair wages in Indonesia. Their findings were presented in a suite of reports at two workshops in 2003 in Indonesia and the USA. Read the full text of the reports listed below.

The Indonesian workshop was an opportunity to hear from a range of stakeholders and based on that and the reports, we continue to define a strategy that supports improved wages and benefits.

Fair wage strategy

We have been working with our strategic business partners to promote a wage-setting mechanism that:

		Is transparent and has direct input from the workers, ideally through negotiation or collective bargaining, or through alternative legal means, such as a workers’ council or welfare committee
		Benchmarks basic pay at a level that is higher than the local minimum wage
		Acknowledges and rewards workers for productivity gains
		Includes and takes into account data on general cost of living and workers' needs
		Is part of a broader and much improved human resources management system
		Meets in full all legally mandated benefits
		Where practical, promotes and supports the development of worker cooperatives.

Read the full text of the reports here:

Fair Wage Study, Indonesia - Background Paper

(130 KB PDF)

Findings

(225 KB PDF)

Review of study methodology and findings

(334 KB PDF)

Fair Wage Workshop Report

(170 KB PDF)

Participant List Fair Wage Workshop

(34 KB PDF)

Explore other labour issues in more detail in our 2007 online report: Striving to improve performance.