Malawi: UN rapporteur calls for living wages and more collective bargaining

UN special rapporteur, Olivier de Schutter, has called on the Malawian government to give “serious consideration ..to the intrinsic relationship between wages and the right to adequate food”  and to take steps to adapt the “absurdly low” national minimum wage to a living wage. He also called for collective bargaining to be applied in particular in tea, and for the right to organize to be respected.

De Schutter, in Malawi at the invitation of the government, convened 5 roundtables to get a full overview of developments in the country. IUF’s Malawian affiliates participated in one of the roundtables and also met with the rapporteur during field visits. The tobacco workers union, TOAWUM , welcomed de Schutter’s call for adoption of the Tenancy Labour Bill, a long-awaited measure to ensure basic rights of tobacco tenant workers.

Read de Schutter’s statement here.