This article on the Fair Trade Wage Guide by Priya and Holly was recently featured on the front page of “Craft News”, the Craft Center Newsletter.

World of Good Development Organization aims to eliminate poverty and structurally improve the quality of life for artisans in very low income craft producing communities around the world. We achieve this goal by partnering with businesses and non-profits to build a stronger fair trade crafts movement in the United States, promoting clear, transparent international standards for fair trade crafts, and investing in economic and social development projects in craft producer communities.
Conscious Consumerism
Conscientious consumers in the United States and Europe are increasingly using their purchasing power to reflect their values. More than 30% of Americans identify themselves as consumers interested in goods and services that value health, the environment, social justice and sustainable living. As the idea of fair trade has become more recognizable, consumers are now asking for ethically sourced choices across all categories. We want to know that we can choose everything from our coffee to our clothing with the assurance that the people behind the products were treated respectfully and paid fairly.
Fair Wage trainings have enabled artisans to quickly and easily calculate their costs to ensure they are receiving a fair salary for their products.
Fair Trade: The Next Organics
In the same way that the organics movement taught us to think about the processes behind the food we eat, fair trade is teaching us to think about the people behind the products we buy. The mission of fair trade has always been to create sustainable incomes for producers in developing countries by providing access to larger markets. And the market for fair trade in the United States is fast growing momentum. According to a report from the Fair Trade Federation, the market for fair trade has been growing approximately 40% per year over the past several years. While the majority of sales can be attributed to fair trade coffee, 20% of all sales in the United States are  jewelry and handcrafts. This rapid growth is allowing thousands of farmers, artisans and communities around the world to participate in an empowering and transparent version of free trade. At the same time, this growth is presenting new challenges with respect to the standardization of fair trade practices beyond the category of coffee.
Measuring Fair Trade: Standards and Certification
Currently there are two ways of tracking and measuring fair trade standards. The first system is at the product level and actually certifies that the individual product being sold is fair trade. This certification process is managed internationally by the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) based in Bonn, Germany. Its counter- part in the United States is Transfair, based in Oakland, California. Thanks to Transfair and the FLO, we can now confidently choose coffee, tea, sugar, rice and fruit bearing the fair trade certified label. Certification requires meeting multiple standards, including key trading relation- ship principles as well as paying a set minimum floor price. To learn more about these standards and the certification process visit: www.transfairusa.org.
The second tracking system is at the company level and does not certify individual products. In categories like handcrafts, clothing, textiles and furniture, where certification does not yet exist, producer groups and trading companies are evaluated at the level of the organization. This evaluation is managed internationally by the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) in the Netherlands and in the United States by a trade association called the Fair Trade Federation (FTF).

A Paradigm Shift: Valuing the Time of Production
Under the IFAT system, when a con- sumer purchases a handmade necklace from Ghana, they trust that the organiza- tion or company they are purchasing from is practicing fair trade principles. In an industry that is based around consumer trust, it is important to maintain this trust. When there were only a handful of fair trade importers, it was easy to express the mission of fair trade to consumers. Yet, as the movement continues to grow, it is going to become harder to maintain this message. Therefore, it is critical that strong standards are in place to ensure that the fair trade industry is not eroded by ill intentioned companies only interested in getting a piece of the market. How can we strengthen the cur- rent principles to ensure consumer confidence and also guarantee that artisans are being treated fairly and with respect? Fair trade leaders from around the world are working to tackle this complicated issue and are focusing much of their effort on creating standards around wages for artisans, similar to the way FLO created a floor price for coffee. Historically, the thought process behind wages for handmade goods has been, “you can compare coffee around the world to more coffee, but how do you compare a basket in Zimbabwe to a basket in Cambodia? How can we set a standard floor price for all baskets regardless of where or how they were made?” A new approach is evolving; one that requires shifting our focus to the one measurable common denominator – the time it takes to create the product. This is true whether the artisan weaves a basket or knits a scarf. Our goal as a movement is to be certain that the artisan is compensated fairly for their labor time and that the proper standards are in place to ensure that the artisans are not being exploited.

The Fair Trade Wage Guide: Measuring Time
With the collaboration of other fair trade organizations, World of Good Development Organization (www.worldofgood.org) has developed a simple, web-based tool to help artisans and traders determine a fair wage based on the time it takes to make a product. The Fair Trade Wage Guide (www.fairtradewageguide.org) is a free web- site that allows users to enter basic information about a product such as the country where the artisan lives, how long it takes to make the item, how much the materials cost and how much the artisan is paid. Based on these inputs, the Wage Guide can determine a daily wage for the artisan. The Wage Guide will then compare the daily wage to local economic indicators like minimum wage and poverty lines for that specific country. The Wage Guide is still in its testing phase, but our goal is to use the Wage Guide to create a floor price for payment to artisans. While it may seem like a simple idea, there are still many challenges. For example, if a group of artisans work together on a product, how do you measure the time? Or when the artisan is practicing a traditional form of art, like back strap weaving that may take days or even weeks to produce one item, how can you pay a fair wage for this
labor time?

Conclusion: Moving Forward
Leaders in the fair trade movement agree that finding solutions to the challenges faced in the handcrafts sector are critical to the continued growth and success of fair trade. At a recent conference hosted by the World of Good Development Organization, many organizations such as The Crafts Center, Global Exchange, Serrv International, Ten Thousand Villages, Aid to Artisans and IFAT, as well as European World Shop partners, signed on to help test and improve the Fair Trade Wage Guide. The Wage Guide is available on the web, and with the contribution from these partners, we will test 2,000 products with the goal of improving the floor pricing process for the crafts segment. We encourage you to check out the Wage Guide at www.fairtradewageguide.org. We also welcome you to join our team by testing products into the tool. Please join us with your thoughts and suggestions.

Holly Harbour is the Co-Founder & Executive Director of World of Good Development Organization and can be contacted at holly@worldofgood.org.  Priya Haji is the CEO & Co-Founder of World of Good and Chair of the Co-op America Board.