Reprinted from the May 1998, Winona Catholic Worker, newsletter of the Winona Catholic Worker, Winona, Minnesota.


Everyone loves a bargain and I’m no different. When I’m shopping, brightly colored signs that say "Sale!" or "Closeout!" get my attention, at least momentarily. This all too human response has not escaped the ad makers for Wal-Mart who have taken this weakness to a higher level. Their pitch is "Watch the falling prices." One can only wonder if someday everything Wal-Mart sells will only cost mere pennies!

Every morning 250 million children around the world go to work for mere pennies, according to the International Labor Organization. Child labor is more common in the less developed countries of Africa, Asia, and Central and South America where almost 25 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 14 work. Instead of school, play time and adequate rest, these children labor in fields, factories, construction sites, and as beggars or street vendors.

Listen to the words of Doi, a 13-year-old factory worker from Thailand. "My father died and my mother just didn’t have enough money to feed my brothers and sisters, so that’s why I came to work. What I really miss is games. We don’t have any time to play football or anything like that. I don’t understand why we can’t have some time in the evening to play." (From Stolen Dreams: Portraits of Working Children, by David L. Parker)

Before I had read a single word of Stolen Dreams, David Parker’s photographs brought tears to my eyes—such beautiful children with such hopeless faces, old already in childhood.

In spite of child labor laws in the United States, children and immigrants are exploited in domestic sweatshops, especially in the apparel industry. In 1994 our own government’s General Accounting Office estimated that there were 2000 garment sweatshops in New York, 4,500 in Los Angeles, 400 in Miami, and several hundred more in other cities.

Today’s sweatshops are a product of a global economy. The logic is quite simple, according to a report from UNITE! (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees): "Large retailers and manufacturers, seeking greater profits in a highly competitive industry, contract production to thousands of contractors and subcontractors located wherever labor costs are low, whether in Malaysia or Honduras, Los Angeles or New York."

The policy makers and image elite want the word "globalization" to have positive connotations—the many nations of the world becoming more united and interdependent. But in addressing economic matters, globalization is a code word for international industrial capitalism. Free trade and open markets are supposed to help everyone—lower prices, third-world development, more wealth for everyone. Instead, too often globalization means more exploited labor.

What can you and I do about a problem so large and spread out around the world? We can begin by renewing our vision of economic justice for workers.

Beginning with the first issue of The Catholic Worker newspaper on May 1, 1933, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin proclaimed the vision of work and economic justice outlined by Catholic social teaching. Freedom from exploitation, production for the common good, a living wage, safe conditions, and the right to organize are all necessary components of justice for workers. All people are created in the image of God and members or potential members of the Mystical Body of Christ.

In the 1986 pastoral letter "Economic Justice for All" the U. S. bishops remind us that "Our faith calls us to measure this [U.S.] economy, not only by what it produces, but also by how it touches human life and whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person" (p. v). The bishops go on to say that because economic decisions have human consequences, they have moral content. Likewise we must look beyond our borders to "the common good of the entire planet" (p. 160). If economic life is increasingly global, so must our responsibility, in justice, extend to workers worldwide.

Then there is "The Lilliput Strategy" outlined by Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello in their book Global Village Or Global Pillage (South End Press, 1994). In Jonathan Swift’s fable Gulliver’s Travels, the tiny Lilliputians capture the marauding Gulliver by tying him down with hundreds of threads while he slept, rendering him immobile and powerless. The Lilliput Strategy might also be called globalization-from-below where "...facing powerful global forces and institutions, people can utilize the relatively modest sources of power available to them and combine them with often quite different sources of power available to other participants in other movements and locations." (p. 106)

Here are several ways we can enact the Lilliputian strategy and become part of a global network of mutual aid that little by little, and day by day, can reduce and, someday we hope, eliminate exploitative labor practices.

Become an informed consumer. It isn’t always easy to know from reading labels whether a product was made from exploited labor, but in general, "Made in the U.S.A." and a union label are better choices. Co-op America (202/872-5307, www.coopamerica.org) is one organization that evaluates companies and specific products based on workplace justice. Another good source is the Council on Economic Priorities (800/729-4237, www.accesspt.com/cep), which ranks 200 consumer product companies.

Question retailers. UNITE! ((212) 265-7000, www.uniteunion.org) suggests asking clothing store managers these questions:

• Do you know how the workers who made this garment were treated?
• Does your store have a code of conduct for all factories that make the clothes you sell?
• Does it forbid child labor and protect human rights?

My wife, Barbara, and I have asked similar questions in stores and usually the clerks or the manager on duty don't have answers. But they are often receptive to our concerns. We ask them to pass our concerns on to their bosses or regional manager. It’s definitely a Lilliputian act, but eventually the questions may reach corporate boardrooms.

Buy from fair trade organizations. Similar to co-ops, these organizations buy directly from producers rather than commodities markets, are democratically run, and promote worker justice. For example, Bluff Country Co-op in Winona sells coffee from Equal Exchange, an exemplary fair trade organization.

The Lilliputian strategy is a lot like the "Little Way" of St. Therese of Lisieux, which Dorothy Day embraced. Dorothy repeatedly says that we are not powerless and each act, no matter how small, is a beginning.