REPORTS
Global Living Wage Priorities: Union-Led Solutions Roundtable Report
On 21–22 August 2025, trade union leaders and worker organisations from Asia, Africa and Latin America convened at the Nemuru Grand Suites in Jakarta, Indonesia for the roundtable Global Living Wage Priorities: Union-Led Solutions. Organised by Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), the meeting was held in direct response to the ILO’s historic decision in 2024 to operationalise living wages. Participants came together to build a shared analysis and forge a worker-led strategy for advancing living wages with a focus on the global garment supply chain. The roundtable brought together representatives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Honduras, and Mexico.
Across two days of intensive discussions, participants rooted their analysis in the global garment, textile, and footwear supply chain—an emblematic labour-intensive sector employing at least 70–75 million workers, the vast majority women based in the Global South. They highlighted how brand-controlled global value chains, aggressive price squeezing, relocation threats, and fragmented production systems have produced a pattern of wages held below the cost of reproduction of labour. Testimonies underscored widespread informality, job insecurity, forced overtime, anti-democratic union practices, and the deepening impacts of gender-based violence and harassment. Participants affirmed that while the ILO’s recent breakthrough opens political space, decades of appeals to governments and employers show that advancing living wages requires a united Global South agenda grounded in union power, international solidarity, and enforceable obligations on brands.
This roundtable brings into focus the collective commitments that emerged across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. To understand these convergences and the direction set by unions and worker organisations, read the full report here: English
Women on the Rise: Gendering the World of Work
The policy brief is a joint publication of Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), Global Labor Justice (GLJ), and Feminist Alliance for Rights (FAR). This policy brief highlights women’s paid and unpaid labor as the cornerstone of gender equality and specifically addresses GBVH in the world of work. The brief demonstrates the links between ILO C190 and two critical areas of concern within the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: Violence against Women, and Women and the Economy.
Click here to read in: English
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