The Fair Trade movement works to ensure that people are adequately compensated for the work that they do. It’s a growing, international movement dedicated to securing a fair deal for producers in economically impoverished countries. A ‘fair deal’ includes paying workers a fair price for the goods they produce—a price that covers the cost of production and guarantees a living income. It also involves programs that can provide lasting stability such as long-term contracts for profits that the producers can bank on, and business training that can help increase sales and speed organization-growth. (Oxfam: Make Trade Fair). Fair Trade is concerned with economic opportunity as well as economic justice, and seeks out producers that have been historically over-looked by bottom-line developers.
A Little History on a Big Idea
The Fair Trade movement originated in Europe over forty years ago. The Fair Trade mission is to create sustainable incomes for poor and disadvantaged producers by:
- providing a living wage
- maintaining stable, long-term trade agreements
- improving working conditions through education, campaigning and creating access to outside markets.
Today, the majority of low-income producers are workers in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, free trade agreements such as NAFTA, APEC, and WTO have ignored opportunities to protect workers and the environment while creating industrial opportunities in these developing regions. In India, for example, millions of people have been employed as piece-work garment workers for far-below minimum wage. This practice is tolerated, since the market for workers’ traditional crafts has been all but eliminated, and their options for creating income grow increasingly limited.
The Fair Trade movement believes that workers should be paid a living wage. It has enjoyed great success in Europe, where fair trade goods are available in over 2,700 world stores and 43,000 supermarkets. Additionally, there are four multi-national Fair Trade organizations that work together to advocate for the Fair Trade movement: IFAT, EFTA, NEWS! and FLO International. In 2001, the European Fair Trade Association surveyed eighteen countries and found that they work with over one hundred importing organizations. The four largest of these organizations have an annual turnover of over ten million a year (12.3 million dollars), and the total net retail value is estimated to be over ninety two million a year (European Fair Trade Association).
