Meredith Alexander, Head of Trade and Corporates

"Was it like a panto then?" asked a woman from Survival as I tried to explain what it was like being inside the shareholder meeting. She had the metaphor just right: it was exactly like a pantomime with a clear villain, lots of audience participation, and most importantly a very predictable script. The only thing missing was the happy ending.

The company started with a presentation by the Board that sounded a lot like the one from last year. Then they opened the floor to questions. The whole agenda was dominated by the planned  Niyamgiri mine that will destroy the Kondh’s spiritual homeland and end their way of life forever.

There were some great questions. My favourites included an NGO asking "will you give a formal public commitment to tribal rights and human rights more generally?" One of the big investors in the room wanted to know if the company would actually meet with them to discuss environmental and social risk management, something other companies do regularly. An individual activist asked "why is the company always on the margins of the law?" after pointing out a range of dodgy practices that had resulted in legal actions.

The very best question came from an Indian gentleman after Vedanta staff couldn't even name the mountain they are planning to mine in the local dialect of the tribal people: "You don’t even know the name of the mountain; why are you are still trying to sell it here in London?"

But just like a pantomime, the company stuck to their script. Vedanta didn't seriously engage with anyone who asked a critical question. Even pension funds and other large shareholders were given brush off answers.

It was almost funny to watch how completely disconnected the company was from the questions, but only if you ignored the fact that thousands of people in Orissa are praying that Vedanta will finally listen to their demands to stop the mine.

Emily Armistead, Who Pays? campaigner

The Financial Times reported this morning that the minimum wage for garment workers in Bangladesh is to increase from £14 per month to £27 per month. While any increase in wages for workers is welcome, despite nearly doubling, wages at this level will still keep workers trapped in poverty.

The minimum wage in Bangladesh was last increased four years ago in 2006. Back then it wasn't enough and high inflation and rapidly rising food prices since that time meant the minimum wage has been massively below the levels workers needed to live off. In recent months garment workers have responded through protests, some which turned ugly with rioting in the streets and factories being damaged, showing just how desperate workers are.

Unions in Bangladesh have been calling for a much higher increase. The Asia Floor Wage is around £96 per month – that’s the amount workers would need to properly feed their families, be able to afford education and healthcare and have a little bit to spare – the kind of income we in the West take for granted. Local unions in Bangladesh accept that this can't happen overnight and have been calling for an interim figure of £48 per month.

As the legal minimum wage increases in Bangladesh, the question is how will suppliers be able to meet this new standard when prices paid to them by retailers remain at rock bottom? And furthermore, if retailers, like ASDA, have any real intention for workers to be paid a living wage above and beyond the minimum wage, where will that extra cash come from? ASDA, as we know, is determined that it can increase wages through improving factory productivity alone. Yet the meagre wage rises this has produced will leave the company struggling to comply with the new legal wage rate in Bangladesh.

Surely it must now become clear to ASDA that, if it is to increase wages to a level which means that the women who make its clothes are actually able to lift them and their families out of poverty, the productivity approach will not be sufficient. A living wage for garment workers means retailers, like ASDA, paying higher prices to suppliers. Plain and simple.

Emily Armistead, Corporate accountability policy officer

We’ve been having a whole lotta fun on the ASDA campaign this past couple of weeks. First up we started staging events at ASDA stores, beginning in ASDA’s hometown of Leeds and in Clapham in South London. At each location a bunch of merry ActionAid campaigners asked ASDA shoppers to donate 2p to the supermarket.

A bit of an unusual ask - but our point was that if ASDA customers are willing to give an extra 2p so that workers are paid a living wage, why won't ASDA?

I was at the Clapham event and the response from ASDA shoppers was fantastic. We had over 200 people taking the action, leaving me in no doubt of what ASDA customers want. As shoppers, we’re sick of hearing about the exploitation of the people who make our clothes.

Consumers want retailers to make the simple changes necessary to ensure that workers are able to take home a decent wage – in ASDA's case, they need to agree to pay a little bit more. 

Then last Monday things got very exciting. We decided that to get our message to Asda shoppers we needed to get right under their noses, so we sent a crack team of undercover agents to put secret messages into Asda’s clothes. The team is visiting cities across the country, leaving thousands of secret messages. I joined them in Newcastle, where it was surprisingly easy to sneak the message labels into pockets. Last week the secret messengers also visited Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

But don’t worry if we haven’t visited your hometown yet – there’ll be more secret messaging happening in August and every month until Asda responds to our demands.

(We'll be continuing these events throughout the summer. If you want to get involved, please contact us at campaign@actionaid.org) 

Lotty Reynolds, Campaigner

Tomorrow, Vedanta Resources holds its 2010 AGM in London  and on the agenda must be one particular topic that refuses to go away: the plight of the Kondh tribal people of the pristine Niyamgiri hills in India.

I hope that Vedanta’s directors will come under real pressure and shareholders take the opportunity to ask some hard questions about what is going on in Niyamgiri.  Investors should take notice of a damning report by highly regarded investment consultancy firm PIRC, which states concerns about the company and recommends opposition at the AGM to the re-election of 3 non-executive directors on health, safety and environmental grounds.

With another key investor pulling out earlier this month following the divestment earlier this year by the Church of England and Joseph Rowntree, investors must look seriously at the social and environmental implications of continuing to have holdings in Vedanta.   May murmurs of further divestments prove to be accurate!

Vedanta was probably hoping that by now that they would have built their hugely destructive bauxite mine on the Kondh tribal people’s homeland, but happily they are still waiting for the final environmental permission they expected long ago…  The Government of India must stand firm and continue to protect the Kondh tribal people’s unique way of life at this sacred Indian site.

Emily Armistead, Who Pays? campaigner

 It’s been 3 weeks since we launched our ASDA campaign. ASDA’s PR team has been in overdrive, but we’ve heard nothing from the company’s management. On Wednesday 28th July, we need you to push them harder.

The issues
ASDA CEO Andy Clarke has not replied to the letter we sent him on July 6th to accompany the launch of our ASDA clothes briefing, ASDA - Poverty Guaranteed. 

ASDA's response skirts our demands, focusing on 5 showcase factories.

The PR problem
Asda made quite a fuss about inviting us to visit these factories, on Twitter and its own Aisle Spy blog.  We said ‘OK, we'll go’ – and we’ve had absolutely no follow up from them.

Then, in last week’s Metro article, Asda said, “We’re ready to take ActionAid to Bangladesh to see first-hand the impact we’re having there.” Really? They might at least let us know  - and give us a chance to pack?

ASDA thinks it can say something to the media and the British public without having to follow through – just like its commitment to improving workers wages: it’s something very convenient to talk about to the press whilst doing very little to make it happen.

Three things you can do
We want you to  get ASDA to answer our challenges. We are not going to let them pump out some PR lines and sit in silence, while not paying thousands of employees in developing countries a living wage.

On Wednesday 28 July, we want you to ask ASDA for an answer.

1. Tweet ASDA’s PR, @dom_asdapr asking them to answer our challenges. Something like:

•    @dom_asdapr Why hasn’t @asda answered the @actionaiduk challenges? http://bit.ly/asdachallenge
•    It only takes 2p. What do you say @dom_asdapr for @asda? http://bit.ly/tellasda
•    @dom_asdapr I want my @asda clothes to made by workers on a living wage. http://bit.ly/tellasda

2. Send them an email  - you can edit the message to say just what you want.

3. Comment on their blog post asking why they haven’t followed up with us since the 6 July yet insist on using their one-off, promise of taking us to Bangladesh to see their showcase factories in every single press statement.

Your help to make this happen is vital -  more voices calling for an answer means a greater chance of ASDA employees in developing countries getting a living wage. So make sure you remember to get involved tomorrow!

Dominic Eagleton, ActionAid policy adviser

ActionAid’s new living wage campaign on Asda is ‘simplistic’ and even ‘disingenuous’ it seems, as raising wages is a darn sight trickier than just paying an extra 2p on t-shirts.

 Retailers have long made the excuse that paying a living wage is ‘complicated’. Leaving aside the excuses, our report shows that a living wage is within retailers’ grasp.

Several major fashion chains – most notably Asda, M&S, Monsoon and New Look – are running projects in a small number of factories to increase productivity and pass on the financial gains to workers in the form of higher wages. These projects tell us three important things:

1)    Wages can be increased, as major retailers are already doing it.
2)    Campaign pressure works, as these projects wouldn’t exist without it.
3)    Productivity increases on their own fall woefully short of a full living wage

That’s why ActionAid is pressing Asda and other retailers to ensure the prices they pay to suppliers cover the cost of a living wage, and to roll out their wage projects to all their factories. Mark's and Spencer's plans take it some way down this road. New Look is already paying a higher price to one of its key suppliers, and Monsoon is at least open to the idea of doing so.

Asda, meanwhile, stubbornly refuses to pay a decent price to ensure its workers are paid a decent wage.

ActionAid has worked with the University of Northumbria to calculate precisely how much more retailers need to pay to get workers up to a living wage. Because workers’ get such a tiny percentage of the retail price for clothes – usually around 1 pence in every pound we spend in shops – the extra amounts are tiny: 2p on a £4 t-shirt from India; 9p on an £8 sweat-shirt from Bangladesh; 11p on a £12 pair of jeans from Indonesia, etc.

So how can retailers make sure these extra amounts go into the pay packets of factory workers, rather than the back pockets of factory bosses? It's really not hard:

1) Retailers should make payment of the living wage a contractual obligation for their suppliers, so it becomes a condition of doing business.
Ironically, a senior Asda executive suggested this.

2) Involve workers closely in the design, implementation and monitoring of living wage schemes within factories.
Doing so means the extra money ends up where it should, and that wage rises are sustainable over the long term. This requires retailers to work with local trade unions and NGOs, something that many of the major players are doing already – although workers’ organisations are conspicuously absent from Asda’s project in Bangladesh.

3) Retailers have to work together to lift wages , as collectively they have more influence over pay levels.
In some factories, retailers might only buy a small amount of production, and in these cases they’ll have less ability to make substantial wage increases – but not if they work together with other retailers. And in any case, fashion retailers are following an industry-wide trend to source from a smaller number of key suppliers, as this gives them greater control over production conditions – which includes the wages paid to workers.

4) Establish longer term relationships with suppliers,
And give bonuses to buying staff whose suppliers are paying a living wage.

If paying a living wage was a bottom line concern, retailers would find solutions – just as they have with other supply chain issues like quality control. The sticky issue for retailers is not complexity, but a lack of genuine will.