Sainsbury's

Download Sainsbury's' submission (pdf)

Responded to survey: Yes. Made changes in response to initial comments.

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

Grade 2: Acknowledges that minimum and industry benchmark wages are not sufficient standards, but no real efforts to apply living wage. [what's this?]

Summary

Once again an infuriating response from Sainsbury's that failed to give us any useful information. It is “taking an active part in the ETI working group,” but refuses to tell us what this entails.

Position on living wages

“This is a serious and complex issue. Sainsbury's feel the best way to progress this is through the multi stakeholder ETI, where other retailers, NGOs and Trade Unions can agree a common approach, and potentially have a more significant and meaningful impact.”

Work so far on living wages

“We are taking an active part in the ETI working group on the living wage, with specific focus initially on Bangladesh. The progress so far has been encouraging, including overcoming the potential issues which UK and EU competition Law (actively monitored by the OFT) pose a collaborative project like this.”

Though we asked how Sainsbury's was taking an active part in this group, it did not supply any further information.

Plans on living wages

“Sainsbury's will continue to work closely with the ETI and its members on this and other projects.”

Though we asked how Sainsbury's intended to do this, it did not supply any further information.

Other significant information

None

Our comments

Every year Sainsbury's' submissions to this survey have insisted that it thinks living wages should be addressed, “through the ETI”. We couldn't agree more. But many initiatives within the ETI move at a glacial pace of progress, while there are wide variety of levels of commitment from its member companies, and companies' progress reports are not disclosed publicly. This means that companies must tell us what specifically they are doing to take advantage of the opportunities created by the ETI's collaborative framework, otherwise we have to assume that they are riding on the coat tails of more active companies.