The civil organization Citizen Action Against Poverty presented a report on Wednesday according to which 156,000 supermarket and department store workers live below the poverty line in Mexico despite the salary advances obtained from 2018 until today.
The report, entitled “Precariousness can go out of fashion; there is still room for improvement,” focuses on the working conditions of the fashion and commercial sector and, although it recognizes progress, points out that “thousands of people who work in the formal sector of the economy still have insufficient wages to overcome poverty.”
“While large commercial chains improved their income, productivity and profitability, they contained the salaries of their workers,” the statement denounces.
As confirmed by the organization’s operational director, Paulina Gutiérrez, the report only reflects the salary evolution of the jobs registered with the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), and therefore excludes those who belong to the informal economy.
The study reflects notable improvements in conditions since 2003, when 69% of people in the sector lived in poverty, to date, when the indicator has dropped to 28%.
In 2018, the year in which the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, began his term, 60% of workers were still poor, a figure that has dropped to more than half in the last six years.
Of the more than 150,000 people who continue to live below the poverty line in the sector, 132,000 work in large or medium-sized companies.
Regarding salaries, since 2021 the proportion of people with salaries up to 10,000 pesos (544 dollars) has been reduced 2.7 times and those with salaries between 10,000 and 20,000 pesos (between 544 and 1088 dollars) have grown 3.3 times.
“The accelerated improvement since 2022 shows that it is possible to eradicate poverty wages in the short term and can set an example, because this sector is one of the main employers in the country,” says the author of the report, Rogelio Gómez Hermosillo.
The president of the Merco supermarket chain, Javier Arteaga, said that “he hopes that the joint effort of the private sector and civil society will allow us to go further (…) so that companies adopt the living wage.”
The statement sets out actions aimed at different actors to implement improvements in the sector.
The government is demanding transparency in labor inspections, promoting collective bargaining and an increase in the minimum wage; while companies are asked to comply with human rights, a business agenda against inequality and to have initiatives to offer living wages.
Citizen Action Against Poverty is a joint initiative, created by more than 60 Mexican civil society organizations, which seeks to have a proactive impact on inequality and poverty.
Source: forbes
