Devils in the Details

Part I: Slave Labor and Investment Gambling

OK, we've talked a lot about the presence of Evil and the necessity for Good. How does that translate into action? What can we learn from Pope Francis? The next few columns will look at some of the Devils in the Details, to help us understand how evil manifests in the world.

Here's one article, by Agence France Presse, reporting in The Huffington Post, that really put me on fire: 

Pope Francis Condemns "Slave Labor" in Bangladesh: "Goes Against God."

This was Pope Francis speaking in response to a factory collapse that left more than 400 people dead in Bangladesh. The Pope noticed a headline that indicated that the workers were living on 38 euros [approximately $50.19 in U.S. dollars] per month. . . .That is what the people who died were being paid. This is called slave labor." Citing humanity's ability "to create, to work, to have dignity," as G-d's creation, Pope Francis wondered "how many brothers and sisters find themselves in this situation." He then stated:

Not paying fairly, not giving a job because you are only looking at balance sheets, only looking at how to make a profit. That goes against God! . . . .There are many people who want to work but cannot. When a society is organized in a way that not everyone is given the chance to work, that society is not just.

To that I add a resounding AMEN that I hope will be heard around the entire world. There is nothing here that I have any reservations about. There is absolutely no disagreement between my ideals and Pope Francis' statement.

This has always been an area where the progressive movement and the Catholic Church are perfectly aligned. We are allies in the struggle for workers' rights. It doesn't matter what one's religion or ideology may be. The goal is what matters.

I have always felt that abuse of workers was a sin. That is one of the things that attracted me to the progressive movement. It is very, very hard to survive on small wages and be able to pay bills. We all need to eat and have shelter, clothing, cleanliness, and health.

How many of these needs are actually met? We get it preached at us all the time about how we are supposed to be creative, independent, willing to work, and out there sweating bullets to earn a living. When something happens, and we cannot do so, we are looked upon with the same disdain as any poor person in a Charles Dickens novel. We are thought of as lazy, irresponsible, and wanting handouts. Yet, we are only looking for a hand up—not a handout!

Oh I work, but trying to pay for everything is quite another story. The healthcare situation alone in the United States is a scandal, but don't get me started on THAT today—or this column will take forever to read! Suffice to say, it has bankrupted many people. Working people. People who should not be blamed for bad luck, for following the best advice that was available to them during their lives.

Instead let's talk about some economics. There are so many discussions about "investing." That word grates on my nerves as much as the word "opportunity" does. Opportunity is meaningless to an older person or any person with any kind of disability. All it means is that the bar will always be much too high to ever be able to "take advantage" of opportunity. Opportunity is simply a gamble that only allows selected people to win. The rest of us must lose.

Given that, how are we supposed to even think about investing?

We don't have two nickles to rub together. What can we actually put aside to invest? What are we going to invest in? And why would we want to put the odd dollar that might come our way into something that is essentially a gamble? That's what investing is. There is always a winner and a loser. And anybody who has not been taught how to play the game will always be on the losing side of it. I got a B in college economics, and there was nothing in that course about credit, investing strategies, or budgeting. There was no preparation for that sort of thing at all. Why should I bother to learn a game that might make me win at the expense of other people?

Pope Frances mentions something about looking at corporate balance sheets. He knows that those sheets only reflect numbers that are supposed to benefit investors. They do not reflect the work that was put into making those numbers possible. 

Think about it. A company is on the stock market. That company wants to have its shares be worth a lot to attract investors. How does the company do that? By cutting costs everywhere. Cutting production costs so that products are shoddy. Cutting labor costs, including everything from worker safety to working conditions, from salaries to benefits. . . . Ultimately, a company will do everything that it can possibly get away with, so that its balance sheets will be attractive to investors.

Doesn't that say something about the stock market and what it does to workers? Doesn't that say something about what it does to consumers? All the stock market cares about is numbers—not people.

Aren't we supposed to be enlightened since the days of the Victorian era when we blamed the poor for their deplorable condition? How can we say that we believe in a merciful and beautiful G-d and then allow slave labor? Pope Francis is 100% right. We can't. It would be total hypocrisy.

While Bangladesh is the most extreme example of slave labor, it goes on in many places. There were workers in a plant in Asia who committed suicide because their working conditions were intolerable. South America uses maquiladoras earning a few cents a day to make clothing. The good old U.S. of A. uses undocumented immigrants to do dirty work. And then, on top of that, these immigrants are condemned for being "illegal." If there was no market for them, they wouldn't be coming here, would they? Somebody is paying them and the little they are getting is worth more than what they can get in Mexico. So we exploit them and then we punish them too. 

This slave labor is a direct result of pressures from investors on the companies to make their balance sheets attractive. That's the connection. Until we stop asking people who do not work for a company to invest in it, we are not going to improve conditions for workers, nor are we going to improve our products. That investment mentality needs to be changed from a win–lose strategy to a win–win strategy. You might be scratching your head and asking, "I'm not a company owner, so what can I do?"

I'm not a company owner, but here are a few of the things that I do:

• If I know a product is made under bad labor conditions, and I have an option to choose a different product, I choose the other product.
• In my husband's 401k, we invested only in bonds. We avoided the stock market, because we don't want to participate in it. True maybe we won't make as much, but at least we can look in the mirror in the morning and not want to vomit.
• In every single interaction with workers, I try to show respect. I try to praise them for a service well-performed. If a person goes the extra mile, I try to tell the boss about it. One never knows, maybe that person would get a nice raise.
• I speak truth to power as best I can. While maintaining respect, I try to let the powers that be what the results of their decisions are. This includes bosses, government officials, etc.

If anybody has more ideas, share them in the comments section of the blog, please. . . . 
 
I think the world should listen to the Pope. On this issue Pope Francis is not backward in any way, shape, or form. He is actually ahead of everybody here.