Correcting our vision
Todd David Whitmore
The Common Good
One of the key features of the conversation on sweatshops has been its focus on justice for persons at considerable distance from ourselves. To this end, President Malloy has made several significant changes in the code of conduct for University licensees.
It may be time, then, to focus more closely. While myopia is to be avoided, so is hyperopia.
1. Consumerism: One reason why it has been difficult to focus on more proximate realities with regard to sweatshops is that the primary concern is not translatable into a code for licensees. What drives "the race to the bottom" in wages and conditions for factory workers is First World desire for brand products. We are what John Paul II calls a "consumer society."
Such drive does produce factory jobs; it also produces a willingness to overlook the wages and conditions of the workers. Short of a dress code — it would have to be extended to faculty as well as students — there is little juridically that Notre Dame can do.
Recommendation: The Progressive Student Alliance and the Entrepreneurs Club should co-sponsor a conversation on the production of wealth and consumerism modeled after the Pax Christi/ROTC conversation on war and peacemaking that has been taking place over the last two years. If there is to be considered conversation on this issue, it must come from the students.
2. A conscience clause: The comparison with the discussion of war carries over, and this is a matter that Notre Dame can address in a codified manner. Just like there are recognized conscientious objectors (pacifists) and selective conscientious objectors (based on the just war tradition) with regard to war, there ought to be with regard to economic commitments.
When coaches and athletes come to Notre Dame, they are in a sense "conscripted" to wear adidas. One might object that they need not come here, but the other option, Nike, may be no different. At present, a coach or athlete, in order to succeed in collegiate athletics, must wear either adidas, Champion or Nike.
Recommendation: The Task Force on Anti-Sweatshop Initiatives should recommend and President Malloy should make policy that there be a conscience clause in the Department of Athletics handbook stating that any coach or athlete who cannot in good conscience wear the contracted apparel shall be permitted to wear a generic, situationally appropiate alternative. Not to have a conscience clause is to say our economic arrangements with our licensees are so grave — more grave than war — that coaches and athletes must check their consciences at the door when they arrive at Notre Dame.
3. Purchasing and contracting: It became clear to the Task Force that its purview was limited and had to remain so if it was to get anythingdone. One of the related issues outside our jurisdiction has been that of Notre Dame's relationship with suppliers of both materials and labor.
If, for instance, it is unjustifiable to have Notre Dame products made in China because of its refusal to recognize workers' right to organize, it would seem at first blush (though the conclusion after detailed consideration may not be the obvious one) that it would also be unjustifiable to purchase products — for instance, desks — made there.
Recommendation: President Malloy should appoint a task force like that which considers the production of Notre Dame goods to investigate purchasing and contracting.
4. The living wage: Notre Dame hosted the founding meeting for the Collegiate Living Wage Association, which, like our present Task Force, is focused on living wages for workers who make collegiate products. A key issue discussed at that meeting was whether the CLWA should also address living wages on campus.
This relates to the immediately preceeding point because in many cases Notre Dame contracts with a company (for instance, for food services) that offers a service and pays the wages. Not long ago, Notre Dame addressed the issue of wages for staff, but it is worth revisiting both because what constitutes a living wage is not constant and because the previous conversation did not consider the wages paid to workers for services that Notre Dame outsources. One temptation with outsourcing is (to draw again on the ocular metaphor) to distance the pay mechanism of the work so as to put it out of moral sight — neither near nor far enough to be seen.
Recommendation: President Malloy should appoint a Notre Dame Living Wage Task Force. The issues around the idea of a living wage are complex — there are real trade-offs — and only the sustained attention of a task force dedicated to the matter will be adequate.
Todd David Whitmore is an associate theology professor. His column appears every other Thursday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, April 19, 2001
