Gap

Download Gap's Submission Here (pdf)

Responded to survey: yes

MSI involvement: yes, Ethical Trading Initiative [what's this?]

Grade 3.5: Can offer concrete examples of steps to develop and implement a living wage methodology in the supplier base, with clear plans to move beyond pilot projects. [what's this?]

Summary

Gap’s plans remain impressive in depth, with research completed and work now planned in seven countries. It is the one company to ensure that trade union rights are central to its plans, however, it has yet to start any real action on the ground to increase wages and needs to progress more quickly in this area.

Position on living wages

‘We are committed to the principle that wages for a standard working week should meet basic needs of factory workers and provide them with discretionary income.’

Position on freedom of association

‘It is our on going belief that worker rights organizations are a strong and critical voice when it comes to any issue of labour rights including wages and any sustainable change in practices cannot happen without all the relevant stakeholders being involved in the process.’

Work so far on living wages

Gap completed phase 1 of its wages proposal - research and strategy development - and chose to expand the scope of the research from five to seven countries in South and South East Asia. A ‘credible 3rd party’ from a human rights background was involved from the outset to supervise the collection and analysis of the data.

‘All of the research analysis will also be shared with the International Textile Garment & Leather Worker’s Federation (ITGLWF) as the entire project is being developed in consultation with them and the project plan of the various phases are also being constructed accordingly.’

Plans on living wages

• Phase 2: Establish a working group with worker, management and trade union representatives in the factory to produce quarterly plans and determine the best approach to enhance wages through a variety of mechanisms.

• Phase 3 Employ a credible third party to assess the impact of the wage project on the business and on the workers.
  

• Phase 4 Produce a draft report on key learnings and share findings in internal workshops. Publish the final report and share learning with external stakeholders.
  

• Phase 5 Develop a strategy to roll out the wage project on a global scale.

Other significant information

Gap have been working with the trade union SEWA in North India where ‘nearly 500 women have been organized... and are now earning nearly 80% higher wages than before in a timely manner with transparent documentation being maintained. We continue to link more suppliers into such models that help the employer and employee have a moredirect relationship with each other.’

Our comments

Although Gap are receiving one of the highest grades for their submission we note that their project, unlike many other brands, has yet to start work with actual factories and plans are remain very much under development.

We acknowledge that if and when these plans get under way the Gap project may be one of the strongest in terms of delivering on all four pillars of the living wage and the only one that has trade union rights as a central tenet.

In 2010 GAP does really need to push ahead with concrete actions to deliver real evidence that increased wages are being delivered to workers. We look forward to seeing evidence of this taking effect in the next stage.