Fair Jobs

O My Bag believes in trade, not aid. By producing in Kolkata, India, we connect producers in small communities to the global market. The more orders we place at our producers, the more fair jobs they can create. This policy connects the success of our brand directly to the positive impact we make in India. But what are fair jobs exactly and how can we - as a brand that doesn’t own any factories - ensure those?

Our producers

It all starts with our producers. We carefully select producers to work with, based on their understanding of our mission, their transparency and their willingness to ensure decent work in their factories. We also visit them twice a year, to maintain the personal relationship we have with them, and to see with our own eyes how workers are treated on the production floors.

Annual digital workers survey

For example, a requirement of producing for O My Bag is that you allow all your employees to participate in our annual digital worker survey. In this survey, factory employees can anonymously share their opinion on their job, what they like and what needs to be improved. We report improvement points back to the producers and they get a maximum of one year to follow up on those. This way, we have been able to install many factory improvements, such as renewed drinking water facilities and toilets, AC and fans on all production floors, more flexible lunchtimes and continuous checkups of machinery. These might seem like only small improvements, but they have a direct positive effect on daily working conditions in the factories. See how the workers experience this in the video below!

Digital Workers Survey

Living wages

Also, we demand full transparency of our producers for our living wages project. Every year, they need to share their full salary administration with us, and explain the differences compared to the previous year to us. The producers' payroll is the basis for calculation the additional living wage premium we pay.

Training

Lastly, we organize structural training for the factories’ employees on leather skills, gender equality and financial awareness. This requires the factories’ management to allow workers to be out of the production line for a few days every year. Employees, mostly women, who have the skills and abilities for a better job, but who lack self confidence or believe it’s not their place, are allowed into a traineeship to help them advance in their career.

In short, a fair job entails:
  • Safe working conditions certified by WFTO or SA8000
  • A yearly living wage premium paid by O My Bag
  • Opportunity to voice your opinion every year in the annual worker survey and to benefit from the factory improvements come out of it
  • Annual training on leather skills, financial literacy and/or gender equality
  • Opportunity to participate in traineeship to advance to new role

Every year in our Sustainability Report, we update you on the progress we’ve made on this topic. Curious to know more? Feel free to reach out to our sustainability manager Femke, and make sure to check out the videos about the annual worker survey recorded at STC and Springfield below!

factory employee
factory employee
O My Bag in the making