Trying to follow

As we talked about a couple days ago, there is definitely a difference between “small things” and “big things” in the lifestyle choices that we make. Yesterday, we talked about, on a practical level, what the day in and day out lifestyle of an ethical person might look like. Today, it’s time to contemplate and consider if all those “small things” really do make a difference. We’ll talk about reducing energy, buying sweatshop-free clothing and fair trade coffee.

What if we all reduced our energy consumption (like turning down our heat)? Instead of using 80% of the world’s resources we take only our fair share? Maybe global warming is true and we save ourselves from utter destruction. Maybe it’s not true and we simply take a step down from our high pedestal and join the rest of the world.

What if we all bought sweatshop-free clothing?
If everyone made a small decision to change the brand of clothing they bought from Hanes to say, Alternative Apparel, it would have a huge impact. Yes, it is true that many pocketbooks would be a a bit thinner, but not that much. Almost overnight millions of once sub-living wage, oppressive jobs and corporations would be lost and other just and fair jobs would fill their places. Communities in the third world would begin to thrive off of fair wages rather then suffer under practical slave wages.

What if we all purchased Fair Trade Coffee?
The impact would be similar to that of the clothing industry, lighter pockets in the USA, thriving communities in the rest of the world. And everyone lives happily ever after.

As Summer quickly approaches it’s time for Corporate Responsibility Mondays to come to a close. It’s been a fun series as Josh and I have co-blogged about corporations in similar industries with differing records:

1. Clothing:
   Bad: L.L. Bean
2. Technology:
   Good: Dell and Green hosting
   Evil: Apple
3. Clothing:
   Good: Maggie’s Organics
   Bad: Kohls
4. Sweets:
   Good: Equal Exchange
   Bad: Sara Lee
5. Shoes:
   Good: Tom’s, Hersey, No Sweat, Adbusters, etc.
   Bad: Nike
6. Bananas:
   Good: Fair Trade
   Bad: Chiquita
7. Clothing:
   Good: No Sweat Apparel
   Bad: J. Crew
8. Fast Food:
   Good: Chipotle
   Evil: Burger King
9. Stocks and Investing:
   Good: Socially Responsible Investing (SRI)
   Bad: Fidelity (and Playboy)

This week, as the Corporate Responsibility draws to a close, Josh and I will be talking about investing. Josh is highlighting a invest firm/stock you might want to stay away from. I’m going to take a different approach today and simply introduce you to the area, not a specific company, of Socially Responsible Investing.

Socially Responsible Investing (which I’ll call SRI from now on) is a fairly simple and straight forward concept, which is simply to have a goal of investing responsibly. What this entails will vary person to person and company to company so it’s something that takes a bit of research.
SRI has taken some criticism because the term doesn’t have clear standards with it or criteria by which to understand what is “responsible” and what is not. Critics say that anyone can simply write up a righteous sounding mission statement and label themselves SRI there by drawing customers and not really being required to perform at the same level of other Mutual Funds and stocks. In an industry that’s fundamental existence has to do with the bottom line, any one suggesting ethics or responsibility come first will be expected to be challenged and looked at funny. The critics do have a point. There are companies out there that have simply taken the label of SRI, but are neither being ‘responsible’ nor seriously ‘investing.’ Yet, that shouldn’t cause use to ditch the whole industry and invest without regard to our values.
If you have any intention of investing your money in the stock market during your life, whether for retirement, college, or just long-term investing, it’s important that your values are reflected in what your choosing. Some SRI stocks focus on environmentally green companies, others seek to avoid tobacco and alcohol, others actively avoid military and gun companies. SRI involves to components usually, screening and activism. Screening is like a mentioned above, filtering companies and stocks based on certain value criteria. They would decide what makes up their portfolio based on avoiding certain companies and seeking out other ones. Activism is the idea of using your investment and stake as a shareholder to encourage change in companies. So, an SRI Mutual Fund might invest in Apple computers so that they can advocate at the annual shareholders meeting for Apple to research more environmentally friendly ways of producing and recycling their products.
The hardest part of SRI is actually doing it. I’ve researched the field off and on for about a year. When I had the chance to set-up a pension with my work I didn’t have much of a choice, there was only one SRI to choose from, Calvert. I’ve been happy with Calvert so far, but I plan on doing more research this summer and seeing what I come up with. Hopefully after this brief lesson your interested in researching Socially Responsible Investing too. That’s why I’ve dubbed this the CRM Summer Project. Maybe this post can be come the conversation hub for our research on SRI and what conclusions we come to on were you should invest. Here are some links to get you started:

• Social Funds
• Social Investment Forum
• SRI From Wikipedia
• Mutual Fund Social Screen Tool

Full Disclosure: I currently have some Mutual Funds that are not in SRI funds. I had them before I discovered this important concept and had a desire to align all of my life with my values. I plan on moving them, but didn’t want to make any snap decisions, but rather move them once I understand what’s best.

Corporate Responsibility Mondays have been a ton of fun and I hope you’ve found them interesting and useful. I’ll continue to try and highlight important companies as I discover them, but for now it’s time to say goodbye to the weekly co-blogging with Josh and open Mondays once again.

Be sure to check out Josh’s final post on a stock to avoid.

I’ve mentioned before that everyone (especially guys) should be reading Ms. Magazine. The main reason is that it brings up a lot of issues that need to be addressed that aren’t being mentioned in major media. Issues such as sex discrimination, abuse, mistreatment, and the wage gap. These are issues that should be dealt with in our society, and particularly in the church.

So, how can we as a church begin to address these issues? I thought I’d start by taking the six points from an article entitled, Mind the Wage Gap, from the fall 2005 issue of Ms. and discuss these as they relate to the church, rather then to the individual reader.

1. Document
2. Do the Research
3. Collaborate
4. Learn to Negotiate
5. Talk to the Boss
6. Celebrate!

1. Document- As I said in an early post on the wage gap, I think there is some compelling reasons to make our salaries known. Particularly the fact that keeping it a secret has kept us from addressing the fact that women make 70 cents on the $1 that every man makes. I’m not sure of the most appropriate way to do it, but I think we should have more open conversation and documenting of what we are making in our churches. This has other implications, but as it relates to the wage gap, knowing what others in your field make will help you be aware of if you are being unfairly paid. Documenting also means letting it be known when you feel you were mistreated or unfairly dealt with as it relates to your wage. If any place should be a safe haven and a place to share those things, it should be the church.

2. Do the Research- This also deals a lot with investigating wages within your field and if you are being appropriately paid. Doing this research individually is fine, but I would imagine a church would be a wonderful central location for the results of research concerning wages could be held.

3. Collaborate- Caring after the orphans and widows has to do with a lot more then providing them clothing and shelter (though that’s good too). Sunday School and Soup Kitchens are good things, but wouldn’t it be amazing to see the church as a collaborating force to ensure women were treated and paid fairly? If ever a person would be distressed, it’s when they are being discriminated against, harassed, paid unfairly, or worse. The church, as a unified body, is just the sort of location and group to help address these sorts of situations.

4. Learn to Negotiate- Again, what better place to learn this then in the church. At the least, Churches should be resources centers for this sort of information. If someone had concerns about their unfair treatment at work, the church should be able to provide contact information and resources for learning how to negotiate, rather then just an offer to pray for the person.

5. Talk to the Boss- Probably the most intimidating and daunting task of the six steps for most people. Especially for single-income households, talking to your boss about your pay, or any acknowledgment of being unsatisfied with work, can be a very scary task as there is probably a great fear of getting fired. Once again, the church has an important role in this step. The churches role is to be a supportive and loving body in the midst of injustice. So, not only do we help empower and prepare people to ask for equal wages, we are also there to support them should their demands be met with resistance. It’s much easier to stand strong against mistreatment and discrimination if you have a loving supportive community around you.

6. Celebrate!- I’d urge churches to have Wage Parties, or maybe Against Injustice parties. When my house mate paid off his last school loan and became debt free, we had a celebratory party. It was a beautiful thing. Like a celebration after finding a lost coin or sheep, we should celebrate when unjustly stolen salaries have been given back. The church should be a place of praise and celebration, for fair wages as much as anything else.

Corporate Responsibility Mondays continue as we turn toward clothing
companies. It’s something you and many generations before and after you
need, whether you like it or not. Ever since the fall there’s been a
market for us to cover ourselves, and a beautiful opportunity for us to
do so in a responsible way. What you wear is not just about fashion and
style, there is so much more to it, there are real people behind the
label.

In cooperation with Josh, Corporate Responsibility Mondays are our chance to introduce you to both the troubling facts behind some of our big brands (thanks to Josh)
and to people and corporations that are doing business in a way you can
support and believe in. Today we are talking about the clothing
industry. Josh will talk about one of the big names in the business, and I’ll introduce you to a company that is doing business in a way I think we can all be excited about.



The most common response I hear when I start talking about trying to
make purchases in a way that is just and fair, is “yeah, but I’m sure
every company has problems if you look for it.” In other words, people
justify their choices by convincing themselves that everyone’s corrupt
so there’s no real point. We’ll I’m proud to say that you can point all
the Cynic’s to Maggie’s Organics. From the plant to your foot, every step of the clothing production and process is something to be proud of.

Maggie’s purchases their merchandise from Nueva Vida Women’s Sewing
Cooperative (COMAMNUVI), the world’s first WORKER-OWNED Free Trade
Zone. This isn’t just a big corporation out to make money in the name
of social responsibility, this is a genuine business, where the power
rests in the hands of those that matter most, the workers.

Their website says it all:

In Nicaragua there are many free trade zones where mainly women work in “sweat shops”, producing clothing under unacceptable labor conditions, long hours and low pay. In a cooperative,
the workers are the owners. We are working together to create
sustainable employment in the community so that we can support
ourselves and our families.

If your even more interested in how the cooperative came to be, I’d
encourage you to check out their video, Ants that Move Mountains, which
I made available on youtube (Ants 1 and 2).

Maggie’s Organics
is a great distributer and has most of the basics that everyone needs,
from socks to simple t-shirts. The neat thing is that there prices are
fairly reasonable too. You can buy t-shirts from $13 and score them on closeout for $10. Socks are more expensive then the sweatshop made ones, but I think the trade off is worth it.

When compared to companies with practices like Josh describes, a fair
trade cooperative, is clearly the best option out there. An interview
of a local worker at a major factory (possibly one operated by the company Josh discussed) and one at the coop shows some of the differences (pdf).
Everything from working conditions and wages, to paid time off and
vested interest in the product and company, it’s apparent that Maggie’s
Organics and the Nicaraguan Cooperative are doing some amazing things.

When it comes to the clothing industry I don’t think we can make
excuses about not doing what’s right. I see two options… Either buy
your clothing second-hand or buy it new from a fair trade company like Maggie’s Organics.

I ran across this article about making salaries open rather then a secret and it reminded me I haven’t posted on the church addressing the wage gap.
The article was basically about the dangers and negative outcomes of companies keeping their salaries a secret.

There are three major reasons why salaries secret are silly:

1. It frustrates employees because any unfairness (real or perceived) can’t be addressed directly.
2. They’re not secret anyway. People talk, you know.
3. It perpetuates unfair salaries which is bad for people and for the organization

Making salaries public (inside the company of course) has some major advantages:

1. Salaries will become more fair. The system gets a chance to adjust itself.
2. It will be easier to retain the best employees because they’re more likely to feel they’re getting a fair salary.
3. The pressure is on the people with the high salaries to earn their keep. Everybody has to pull their weight - the higher the salary, the larger the weight.

I thought it was a pretty good case and figure not just companies but communities (like the church) could probably learn something from this.

As a church, we are a body of people who share some of the same beliefs. Some of these beliefs include this idea that we are “brothers and sisters,” that we should love one another, care for and meet the needs of one another. The idea of sharing all our possessions in common might be a little too radical for most, but maybe opening up our check registers and bank statements might be an honest way to start challenging ourselves and one another to live in a way we believe is Biblical.

I had a discussion the other night with a bunch of folks about stewardship, money, etc. and what the Bible says about it and what that means for our lives. I wanted the conversation to be very practical and relevant to our lives, specific to our lives even. I think some of what the conversation lacked though was the specifics. We talk about how we don’t really know how much someone might be giving, and I see the biblical justification for that (don’t make a show of your giving, etc), but I also think the reason we don’t challenge each other and a reason tithing is so stinking low in the church is that we our so secret and private with our money. Let’s be a little more open shall we?