Governments can help create a more fair and just economy in many ways. One way, seldom considered, is simply being responsible and ethical consumers. As big purchasers, governments on all levels can require that workers who make the products they buy enjoy decent working conditions and living wages. Many states and cities are doing so by joining the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium, an innovative new collaboration to steer our tax dollars to companies doing the right thing by their workers.
Sweatshops, unfortunately, are no surprise. We expected to hear about workers’ lives of pain and deprivation, and did. But most striking and unsettling was coming face-to-face with a deep and pervasive feeling of vulnerability, insecurity, and fear. “All we ask is for God’s strength to continue onward and keep enduring,” a young Mexican worker who makes body armor for U.S. police officers told us. “But as my grandfather used to say, ‘There isn’t evil that lasts 100 years, nor life that can’t endure it.’ I only ask for strength and courage that everything gets better.’”
Unfortunately, those who dare to do more than hope that things get better very often face intimidation and harassment as retribution for speaking up or supporting a union.
For example, a Massachusetts military and state contractor has separated union supporters from each other and isolated them from other workers. “They have put me in the back of the factory,” one of them told us. “The manager told me that I will be there forever. She told me not to move from there, that I shouldn’t talk to anyone.” Their wages are so low most of them need and qualify for public assistance to make ends meet.
A police uniform factory in Honduras that supplies U.S cities has laid off 58 workers in the last few months to “reduce costs.” But according to a Honduran union leader, “the 58 people who were fired are all workers who have visited our offices and support the union.” The workers at this factory try to sustain their families with wages that barely cover half the cost of their most basic necessities. Their diet rarely includes vegetables, let alone chicken or other meat. The children usually go without milk. Even so, food and rent alone exhausts their entire salary.
These workers are now told they are lucky to be working at all, no matter the conditions. It is as though the global economic crisis has devalued even their hardship and diminished their humanity. This kind of economy is neither moral nor sustainable.
As consumers, governments can help to restore fairness to the economy by recognizing the value and humanity of the workers who make products they buy. Governments are responsible for spending public funds—our funds—prudently, using competitive procurement practices to ensure the best possible price especially in an economic crisis. But they should also ensure that competition does not result in prices that foster reduced wages, longer hours, and poorer working conditions.
Many state and local governments have already committed to buying only sweatshop-free products, with more taking interest by the day. For more information on how your city, county, state, or school district can join the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium, see www.buysweatfree.org. Let your leaders know you want your tax dollars to help rebuild the economy, not to fuel the race to the bottom.
