Decent Work Check Ethiopia, Phase IV

Phase IV works towards better wages and working conditions for workers in Ethiopia's flower and garment sectors, through worker surveys, data-driven social dialogue. Gender expert-led women-only sessions to strengthen women's voice and trade union leadership.

Project Description

This project aims to improve wages and working conditions for workers in Ethiopia's flower and garment sectors. Wages in Ethiopia's flower and garment sectors are well below living wage levels, and compliance with labour law is often low. Women make up most of the workforce, yet they are underrepresented in dialogue with employers and in union leadership.

Building on eight years of WageIndicator's work, the project combines DecentWorkCheck surveys across 10 flower farms and 3 garment factories with data-driven social dialogue between workers, unions and management. The project applies WageIndicator's data-driven social dialogue approach, which builds on eight years of work in Ethiopia. In each participating workplace, a DecentWorkCheck survey shows how working conditions compare with Ethiopian labour law. Workers, unions and management discuss the results, agree on improvements, and record them. The project then follows up to check with a second round of data collection, to identify that the agreements are implemented. Separate sessions for women make sure their issues are part of the dialogue. Unions receive the survey data and access to WageIndicator's database of annotated collective bargaining agreements to support their negotiations. Besides that relevant stakeholders are supported with data derived from the project for other purposes, such as minimum wage advocacy using living wage, compliance and gender pay gap evidence.

Objectives

This initiative aims to improve labour conditions in Ethiopias garment and flower sectors.
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Data-Driven Social Dialogue
Workers know their rights under Ethiopian labour law, and DecentWorkCheck results are discussed in workplace dialogues that lead to documented and followed-up improvements.
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Women's Participation
Women's issues are on the dialogue agenda, and women take part in union leadership.Evidence for unions and advocacy.
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Negotiations
Unions use the survey data and collective bargaining agreements in their negotiations, and stakeholders use the project data in wage and labour policy discussions.

Role WageIndicator

WageIndicator leads the project and provides the tools, data and methodology behind it. It designs and runs the DecentWorkCheck surveys, analyses the results, and prepares a report for each workplace that compares conditions with Ethiopian labour law. WageIndicator organises and facilitates the dialogues between workers, unions and management, documents the agreed improvements, and carries out the follow-up to check that they are implemented. It also engages the gender expert who leads the women's sessions.

In addition, WageIndicator maintains the database of annotated collective bargaining agreements that unions can use, and makes the project's data on wages, living wages, compliance and gender pay gaps available to stakeholders for advocacy.

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