Living Wage Report Non-Metropolitan Brazil State of São Paulo With focus on orange production in the citrus belt Study Date: February 2020 By: Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa, Ian Prates Cordeiro Andrade, Marina Barbosa e Silva & Sabrina Bowen Farhat A worker in an orange farm close to Bebedouro in the state of São Paulo. Series 1, Report 24 Published November 2020 Under the Aegis of Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance, and Social Accountability International, in partnership with the ISEAL Alliance and Richard Anker and Martha Anker. Anker Living Wage Report: non-metropolitan areas of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, with a focus on the citrus belt TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. 3 Section I. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 5 1. Background ......................................................................................................................... 5 2. Living wage estimate ........................................................................................................... 6 3. Context ............................................................................................................................... 7 3.1 Representativeness of study results for other nonmetropolitan areas of state of São Paulo .............. 12 4. Concept and definition of a living wage ............................................................................. 15 5. How a living wage is estimated ......................................................................................... 16 Section II. Cost of a Basic but Decent Life for a Worker and Their Family .......................... 18 6. Food costs ......................................................................................................................... 18 6.1 General principles of model diet ........................................................................................................... 18 6.2 Model diet ............................................................................................................................................. 18 6.3 Food prices ............................................................................................................................................ 21 6.4 Food cost ............................................................................................................................................... 22 7. Housing costs .................................................................................................................... 24 7.1 Standard for basic acceptable local housing ......................................................................................... 24 7.2 Rent for basic acceptable housing ......................................................................................................... 27 7.3 Utilities and other housing costs ........................................................................................................... 28 8. Non-food and non-housing costs ....................................................................................... 28 9. Post checks of non-food and non-housing costs ................................................................ 31 9.1 Health care post check .......................................................................................................................... 32 9.2 Education post check............................................................................................................................. 33 10. Provision for unexpected events to ensure sustainability .............................................. 33 Section III. Living Wage for Workers ................................................................................. 34 11. Family size needing to be supported by living wage ....................................................... 34 12. Number of full-time equivalent workers in family providing support ............................. 34 13. Take-home pay required and taking taxes and mandatory deductions from pay into account 36 Section IV. Estimating Gaps between Living Wage and Prevailing Wages ......................... 37 14. Prevailing wages in the orange agricultural sector in the state of São Paulo ................... 37 14.1 Basic wage, cash allowances and bonuses, and overtime pay ............................................................ 37 14.2 In-kind benefits as partial payment of living wage.............................................................................. 43 15. Living wage in context and compared to other wages .................................................... 44 15.1 Wage ladder ........................................................................................................................................ 44 Section V. Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 48 References........................................................................................................................ 51 © Global Living Wage Coalition 2 Under the Aegis of Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance, and Social Accountability International, in partnership with ISEAL Alliance and Richard Anker and Martha Anker Anker Living Wage Report: non-metropolitan areas of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, with a focus on the citrus belt Living Wage Report Non-Metropolitan Brazil State of São Paulo With focus on orange production in the citrus belt ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank first of all, Richard and Martha Anker, who were always very kind in answering, so many times, methodology-related questions, plus providing enlightening comments on this report. It an honor to be part of the technical network on living wage coordinated by them, where we can interact also with other colleagues all over the world. Alessandro Rodrigues from IMAFLORA shared with us his knowledge about the orange sector and important contact people in the fieldwork. Patricia Costa and Júnior Dias from DIEESE were very helpful in providing reports, general information about the agricultural sector and contacts of trade union representatives in the cities we visited. Angela Cristina Tepassê, with her knowledge on Brazilian databases, such as RAIS and PNAD, was always very keen to discuss with us the possibilities and limitations of using these data, and how to adapt them in order to better reflect the reality we saw on the ground. Marjoliene Motz of Fair and Sustainable Consulting provided invaluable support to the project from start to finish. This research could not have been undertaken without the support of rural wage workers unions of Araraquara, Bebedouro and Lucianópolis, and of FERAESP (Federation of rural wage workers of the state of São Paulo) in Bauru – all of them very kind in sharing their views on the citrus belt socioeconomic and labor situation. Last but not least, we would like to thank the workers, and their families, who talked to us in the field and opened their homes to answer unusual and detailed questions about their livelihoods. It is our intention that this report will help others in the value chain understand their working and living conditions and, ultimately, lead to their improvement. It is important to stress that this version incorporates some of the comments and issues raised during 4 online sessions with stakeholders when we presented the Anker methodology and the main findings of this report: the first with different organizations mostly from Europe and the other 3 with stakeholders in Brazil, especially union representatives and small farmers cooperatives. These meetings were held in the second half of July 2020 and the beginning of August 2020. © Global Living Wage Coalition 3 Under the Aegis of Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance, and Social Accountability International, in partnership with ISEAL Alliance and Richard Anker and Martha Anker Anker Living Wage Report: non-metropolitan areas of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, with a focus on the citrus belt This study was commissioned by the Juice CSR Platform, set up in 2013 as a multi-stakeholder sustainability initiative specifically established for the fruit juice industry by the European Fruit Juice Association (AIJN) www.aijn.eu. This work was supported by IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative and by the Partnership for Sustainable Orange Juice (PANAO), a multi-actor partnership of companies, civil society, trade unions and the public sector with the aim of improving the living and working conditions for workers and producers in the orange juice supply chain. © Global Living Wage Coalition 4 Under the Aegis of Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance, and Social Accountability International, in partnership with ISEAL Alliance and Richard Anker and Martha Anker Anker Living Wage Report: non-metropolitan areas of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, with a focus on the citrus belt Living Wage Report Non-Metropolitan Brazil State of São Paulo With focus on orange production in the citrus belt SECTION I. INTRODUCTION 1. BACKGROUND This report estimates a living wage for non-metropolitan areas of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, for February 2019. It applies the methodology developed by Richard and Martha Anker (Anker and Anker 2017) and used in more than 30 countries to estimate living wages. Fieldwork was conducted