A friend pointed my attention to the recent article in Mother Jones about what life is like for a person working in a “fulfillment” warehouse that sends me the stuff I buy over the Internet.
The piece was pretty much what you’d expect: the people at the bottom end of our labor ladder are treated horribly, they work under nightmare conditions, they have no job security, and few rights.
 |
| Jan Says These Birds Even Appeared During Last Week's Snow Storm |
The MoJo article makes one brief reference to buying locally, but otherwise offers no remedy – it’s “view with alarm” writing, a term I learned from my boss the late Herman Warsh, and he didn’t mean it as a compliment when he applied it to my writing.
One wonders, for example, if I buy things in my local hardware store or clothing store, who made that stuff, and what the conditions are like in the warehouses that ship to retails stores instead of direct to consumers.
OK I’d like to avoid “view with alarm” writing, which means I need to put some attention to the context and possible remedies. Here’s my handy list:
1. Worker’s circumstances have improved since Frances Perkins and FDR put serious attention to wages, hours, working conditions and child labor 70 or 80 years ago. But there’s no doubt that the US’s lurch to the right since Regan has been coincident with a sharp decline in worker’s rights in general, and union protection specifically.
It may be that the trend is starting to go the other way, as conservatives spin off into self-parody. The movement to recall Wisconsin’s anti-union governor is an example of growing push-back on this issue. All in all, we are offered cheap goods that can only be obtained at a low price if unseen people are exploited. We’re in an economy that has pushed huge amounts of money towards the top end, while creating a capitalist’s dream: a huge pool of desperate people willing to put up with anything to avoid starving and homelessness.
2. The buying local impulse reminds me of energy conservation: it’s a good thing to do (buy locally, conserve energy), but only if you also look at the quantity, not just the quality of what you do. While the pontifications of prosperous suburbanites to “buy less” can be hard to stomach – their core point is correct. I installed an energy efficient furnace that freed me from burning high-pollution oil, but I also turned down the thermostat. Buying locally may be a good idea (see next), but not buying at all should be the first thing I consider.
And what are they selling? Where did it come from and how was it made?
The clearest case for buying local is with food – I like to support neighborhood agriculture when I can, local craft people also. There is mutual benefit and much less danger of harming distant unknown people. I still need to exercise care – in defining local, and understanding what practices are used. Chemical-laden food and worker exploitation in the next town aren’t reasons to direct my business towards those folks. Locally-sourced hybrid tomatoes smeared with dangerous chemicals or organic produce from Mexico? Not such a simple equation to solve.
4. Retailers tell us an interesting message: give me your money, it matters where you shop (ie, with me); but also, it doesn’t matter what one person like you does, so if I behave outrageously or rip you off, you’re just hurting yourself if you stop shopping with me.
There are two reasons why I think it does matter where you shop and where you decide not to shop. Obviously, one reason is that you are part of an aggregate, and when profit margins are slim, driving away customers is real punishment for those who misbehave.
Second, I think I’m making a mistake when I allow people who sell things to frame me as helpless and impotent. It may suit them to have powerless workers and powerless customers. Actually, I have power over my own expenditure of money. Even if no one else imitates my quirks, I’m looking for trouble when I envision myself as someone whose actions don’t matter. If you believe that then you don’t vote, you don’t stay in touch with your neighbors, you don’t hold schools and doctors and yourself accountable. Passivity is the 8th deadly sin.
5. Sometimes it’s a bad idea to shop locally. I’ve been on a tear about a local retailer that uses the handicap parking spaces at its stores to park their trucks. I don’t like a business that feels above the law, and one that says it doesn’t care about the business of certain classes of customers. I try to steer my purchasing towards the businesses that welcome everyone. It doesn’t matter if anyone knows I’m avoiding the discriminatory local business. I know. I maintain my sense of self-respect this way, and I direct my actions more towards a life that aims for coherence between values and actions.
6. Be careful how you define local. I went onto the Internet and ordered wonderful hand-made “OBAMA” pins to wear and give out; they’re so much nicer than the cheap stamped-out things. They come from an internet site that acts as a storefront for craftspeople (search for Paper Moon Jewelry on Etsy.com). As it turns out, the pins are made by hand right here in Newcastle Maine. All Internet purchases are not created equal.
And by the way, speaking of local business, Paper Moon shipped my purchase to me via the United States Post Office, a partially local institution that is under terrible assault. I try to select USPS as a shipping choice when I can, and I’ve learned that Mailman Glennn will bring me all sorts of things, like stamps and money orders. So far – no pizza. The closing or reducing of local post offices is a direct function of how much people like me use them. Here's one of many recent articles on local post offices:
We all do shop, and the choices we make have consequences for us, others, and our communities. The central message of organizing – whether for worker’s rights or any other issue that hasn’t been coopted and commoditized, is that each of us and all of us have a surprising amount of power over our lives. We will always benefit when we resist those who try to convince us otherwise.
