Coalition of Action on Decent Work and Living Incomes and Wages for All Food Systems Workers

The Coalition of Action on Decent Work and Living Incomes and Wages for All Food Systems Workers (DWLIW) is committed to the goal of ensuring economic and social justice and the right to adequate and nutritious food for all food systems workers. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of our food systems and exacerbated the decent work deficits endured by agri-food workers in many countries. We now have the chance to rethink our traditional approaches and develop effective strategies to build back better.

The Coalition aims to pursue its goal by advancing equitable livelihoods by promoting labour and human rights and increasing opportunities for decent and productive employment within the agri-food sector, including achieving 100% living incomes and wages. This involves creating equitable opportunities to earn decent incomes through productive farming, fishing and pastoralism and improving decent employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in on- and off-farm enterprises, and other related sectors of the food system; and, ensuring sustainability and resilience of income and jobs to adverse shocks, crisis and climate change. Particular attention is paid to promoting fundamental principles and rights at work guaranteeing the right to organise, to be free from child labour, forced labour and discrimination, with a focus on groups of workers particularly exposed to socio-economic vulnerability such as migrant workers, youth, women, Indigenous peoples, informal economy workers, and those marginalized on grounds of ethnicity, race, religion, and disability.

To achieve its ambitious objectives, the work of this Coalition is structured around 5 priority areas. These have been based on the notion of decent work, as conceptualized by the International Labour Organization (ILO) some two decades ago, and now embedded in the SDGs, and the four pillars of the Decent Work Agenda: (1) rights at work, (2) full and productive employment, (3) social protection, and (4) social dialogue. The priority areas for action are:

1. Institutionalising and strengthening labour and human rights and improving labour governance in food systems
2. Promoting decent employment in food systems, with a focus on more and better jobs for the most vulnerable
3. Empowering food system workers through strengthening workplace organization and effective social dialogue
4. Ensuring the right to social protection and income security
5. Achieving 100% living incomes and wages