Dr. Sandie Morgan looks back at episode #110, with founding co-host Dave Stachowiak, as the two discuss the importance of making just choices with our purchasing power.

Key Points

• It’s important to understand that as consumers, we all have a purchasing power that we can use, and it all begins with awareness and consideration of what’s good for those who were behind the production of a product.


• The Bureau of International Labor Affairs provides a list of goods produced by child labor or forced labor and can be found below.


• The Bureau of International Labor Affairs takes a research based approach to creating this list, using information that is available to the public and can be replicated.


• Being aware of the good that are produced by child labor or forced labor is a start to individual and collective action. It is an opportunity to become educated in order to change the quality of life for a child, an adult, a human being.

Resources

• California Supply Chain Transparency Act


• U.S. Department of Labor


• Office of Child Labor, Forced labor, and Human trafficking


• Bureau of International Labor Affairs


• List of Goods Produced by Child or Forced Labor 


• Reducing Child Labor and Forced Labor: A Toolkit for Responsible Businesses


• Chocolate ScoreCard


• Department of Labor Comply Chain 

Transcript

Sandra Morgan 0:14

You are listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. This is episode number 317. We’re here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Today, we are bringing back my founding co-host, Dave Stachowiak as we revisit a previous episode. You’re going to be listening to Episode #110: “Just Choices: Is it Too Complicated?”. I was reminded of this episode as I saw all of the chocolate in the stores as we celebrated Easter. This episode opens the door for more reflection on our personal ethics in our fight to make a difference in ending human trafficking. With the passage of time, I’ve come to value a personal ethic that builds empathy and bleeds into other spheres in our lives where we have influence: your business, your office, your place of worship. Take a listen to this conversation between Dave and me.

Dave 1:50

Sandie today, we are looking at a topic that is one that actually pretty much all of us are dealing with, whether we understand that or not, are aware of that or not. That is some of the choices we make in sourcing supplies and working with forming partnerships with organizations that supply things to our organization, and to businesses, and to nonprofits and thinking through that, or not, as the case may be. We’ve got a lot of tools and resources to look at today, in order to help us all to be more effective.

Sandra Morgan 2:28

I tell you, Dave, I’ve had so many conversations of late, where it’s part of who I am. We’re having a conversation and I hear people say, “Well, that’s too complicated.” Because I explained, during Ensure Justice preparation, the idea was to order a little cotton tote bag, and someone had found a really good deal, and I said, “Well did you check the supply chain? Because here in California, we have the Supply Chain Transparency Act.” The person looked at me and said, “That’s kind of complicated, I don’t have time to do that.” I said, “Well, it’s out of my department, I’m going to do it.” This is something I really want listeners to pay attention to. If the people in your company, in your organization, in your church, if you’re a pastor, you’re the CEO, and the buck stops here. If decisions are made, to not follow through on something that looks a little complicated, ultimately, that’s going to be my responsibility. So I stayed a little later, I went online, I checked out the website, and according to the law, they needed to have certain information. When that information was not transparent enough, I made phone calls. We did not give out tote bags that year, because I couldn’t find one that I felt was done ethically and I knew for sure there was no child or forced labor in it. So I’m very committed to this and I wanted us to look at the tools that are available to us whether you’re in California or anywhere. The US Department of Labor in 2005 was mandated to develop the Office of Child Labor, forced labor, and human trafficking. As a result of that, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, the ILab is conducting research on child labor and forced labor in order to produce a bi annual report. We’re going to talk about how that report helps us do our homework. It is a little bit complicated, but it’s not nearly as complicated as if we didn’t have these tools and resources.

Dave 5:04

I think you’ve mentioned something Sandie, here that all of us bears responsibility for. When I think just to my own experience here, is that there are times that I have gone online to purchase something or been influenced in making a decision to purchase something from an organization, and I have thought through this. Like, “Okay, where’s this coming from? What’s the supply chain and done some research on that?” I will say more often than not, I’ve gone on, especially if I’m looking for something that could be purchased potentially different places or more of a commodity item, I am as guilty as anyone of going on and finding the lowest price and like, “Oh, this organization has it cheap and we can get it even cheaper here, and not really thinking of the implications of that.” I think it’s sometimes easy. This is one of those things where, what do they call it in psychology? Diffusion of responsibility, it’s very easy to just kind of mentally offload the responsibility somewhere else. It’s like, “Oh, well, it’s already for sale here. It’s cheap. And this is a great dea,” and yet, we all bear the responsibility for if we only look at price, if we only look at getting the cheapest product. Then we’re part of that process. We are part of, potentially, a supply chain that is not really doing the things that would be in alignment with the values and with looking at what are things that might be risk for trafficking, or forced labor and the things that we’ve talked about on the show a lot. So I think one thing that we can all take away, whether you go and use this tool immediately, or looking these resources or not, is just I think a starting point for all of us is when we’re trying to purchase something, or we’re looking into where we’re going to spend our money, is just stop and think for a minute. Am I only making this decision on price? Or would I be willing to take a few extra minutes to look at what the supply chain looks like? And we’re going to give you a bunch of tools in this episode to do that. But I think just changing that mental attitude, and I’m saying this as much to myself, Sandie, as much as anyone else, when we’re going online searching for something, or looking for something for organization, just to take a moment to stop and think, “Okay, what else can I ask in addition to price? Not that we’re going to ignore that, but what else can I ask in addition to that, so I’ve got more data points to make a good decision that supports the things we’re talking about.

Sandra Morgan 7:32

And anytime you’re you’re involved in a conversation, where ethics is the bottom line, it is messy, because we don’t live in a perfect world, and it is very difficult to be completely sure that any particular product is 100%, slave free. But that doesn’t excuse us from making the effort and making choices that will be more justice oriented choices for the people whose labor has gone into that. And we could get diverted from the toolkit, just talking about the ethics of making choices that are based on what’s good for me without any consideration of what’s good for someone else.

Dave 8:18

Yeah, no, exactly. It’s tough. So awareness is one big area. Just one example, and I may have mentioned this on the show before, we’re recording this in October, so Halloween is coming up. I remember a couple of years ago, we had talked so many times in the show about Fairtrade chocolate, and I was thinking about, “Oh, it’d be great if we could hand out Fairtrade chocolate to kids on Halloween.” And I went online and did some research, and I think I figured out it was g