The High Cost Of The Low Price

I remember being in Mexico many years ago when our family was engaged in a visitation there to try to help us get some perspective and experience related to how so many people in our world live (compared with our lifestyle). We went by a factory that seemed to go on for blocks. It had few windows and looked more like a prison due to the barbed wire fencing. This was one of the notorious “maquiladoras” (often called sweatshops in English) that we had read about. These were the factories that were set up in Mexico in order to produce goods that were duty-free and tax-free. Furthermore, the wages that were being paid to the workers there was far less than what would need to be paid to people in the States.

The conditions in most maquiladoras were horrible. People (often women) worked long hours in hot conditions, had few breaks and essentially made a few dollars a day. Injuries and workplace violence were common. Because some of the workers came from other towns to work there, they had to pay some of their wages to stay in dilapidated housing provided by the factory owners and would only get to see family members on weekends.

This was all done so that companies could produce goods more cheaply and make A LOT of profit. Consumers – especially those of us in the United States – wanted our shirts, shoes and household goods at low prices, and companies found ways to do that at the expense of people we never met or saw. A shirt that cost $10 in the United States, for example, might have only cost $1 to make (including materials and labor). Consumers got a low-priced product. Business made loads of money. 

But someone paid a very high price for all this. And today sweatshops exist throughout our world.

In today’s first reading from Amos, we hear of the economic exploitation of workers. This is not a new phenomenon in human history, and the biblical readings actually speak of it over and over.  In fact there are hundreds of passages that highlight, condemn and speak to God’s disgust with economic exploitation.

God actually calls it a “crime” in the reading today and says Israel will be held accountable because they have sold “the just person for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals.” Amos goes on to describe an economic system that tramples “the heads of the weak into the dust of the earth, and forces the lowly out of the way.”

Where do you see this going on around you or us today?

Like so many realities in our capitalistic society, there’s a lot that has become normalized around us that is often “hidden in plain sight.” Perhaps we shop at a place like Wal-Mart and appreciate the “roll back” prices. Or maybe we like that we can “find it cheaper on Amazon” and have it delivered to our door. I know that I do.

The cost of cheap goods, however, gets paid by someone (and by the earth).

In the gospel today (Mt 8), as in many other gospel passages, Jesus instructs his disciples to “cross to the other shore.” This is often a sign inviting his disciples into a new consciousness or a new reality. He goes on in the passage to offer this invitation without a guarantee of comfort and with an urging to do it as soon as we can. I think he knows that someone bears the cost of injustice and he knows that there are certain groups of people who bear the costs a lot harder than others and that their lives are particularly on the line.

Tuning in to movements for worker justice and noticing economic exploitation is an inconvenient practice because it is almost everywhere we look, and in a world of multi-national companies/corporations it can very difficult to even know where our goods came from (and what the working/living conditions are for the people who produced the stuff).

As I write this blog post, the Poor People’s Campaign is hosting a rally in Washington, DC, in preparation for next weekend’s March/Mass Mobilization on Washington. The Poor People’s Campaign is specifically putting its focus on low-wage workers and the profound connection between low wages and poverty. They offer resources on their website for how people can support and advocate for worker rights.

Organizations like Green America also offer a bunch of resources on their website including a list of questions for us to ask/ponder as we make purchases. These include questions like:

• Do you know/does the store where you purchased this from know how the workers who made this product were treated?
• Does your store guarantee that the workers who made this product were paid a living wage, enough to support their families?
• Does your store have a code of conduct that protects human rights and forbids child labor and unsafe conditions in all the factories that make the products you sell? How do you enforce these rules? Are your factories monitored by independent, third-party sources?
• Are you providing development programs in the communities where your workers live? Are you working with others in your industry to apply meaningful labels so consumers can know that exploited labor was not used to make your product?

Most of the stores we shop in might say, “Huh?” if we asked these kinds of questions, but they represent the kinds of questions we need to be asking if we’re going to address some of the fundamental inequity that has become part and parcel of most of our economic systems. And in our fast-paced lives, asking questions like these takes time – time that few of us have to do some of the research we might need to do. A few years back I had an app on my phone (that was discontinued in 2020) called GoodGuide that provided information on goods. It was really useful, and I have not found a good alternative since then. (Note: I also came across a web article that I plan to check out from The Good Trade that lists some alternatives to buying from the big sites online. You may also have some sites that you use…)

Obviously we won’t turn around worker exploitation in one blog post. The hope is, however, that as we accept Jesus’ invitation to “go to the other shore,” we might bring a new consciousness to our purchases and the people behind them.