Example

To give an example, we pay 1,40 Euros + taxes for our cables, which are currently still declared as "unfair". Fine, we can illustrate that. But then what? Who gets the lion share of those 1,40 Euros? The boss of the cable company, even though he is just a lazy guy sitting in his chair all day? Or because he works hard, bears a high risk and takes good care of his employees? Or do the workers get the lion share? Is the share for the workers appropriate, too high, too low? We can't tell.
And even if we knew all of these facts regarding the cable, one of its cost factors, for example, is the material. And so it's back to square one. Assuming we knew how much our supplier pays when purchasing an USB plug (which he hasn't revealed to us yet), once again we don't know how much of his revenue is profit, how much of it is the workers' pay, how much goes into accounting, marketing, shipping...? And does all of this correlate in a fair way to the provided services, risks, etc.?
All of this applies to suppliers, sub-contractors as well as to our own work. Because even regarding the latter, we are lacking the figures necessary for a detailed illustration since - in order to do so - we first would have to record the exact time we invest in each area, such as fairness development, organisation of production and manufacturing, material, educational work, accounting. At least we know that in 2013, we spent about 1 hour working on each mouse. Meaning we unfortunately missed the intended fee rate of 15 Euros. Fair or unfair?

back