We must live with the choices we make

Global economy needs trade agreements covering worker safety

I know my beer is union made, but what about clothes? Not flesh of my flesh, Nor bone of my bone, but still miraculously my own. Never forget for a single minute; You didn’t grow under my heart but in it.

— Fleur Conkling Heyliger

As I think I’ve mentioned to you before, there are many things that make me different from my mother, the amazing woman who adopted me when I was 10 days old. There’s one difference right there — she likes kids enough to pick one out of a crowd and decide to raise it. I like adults.

Although both of us worry too much about things out of our control, talk incessantly (partner Renée will verify that), and have both been newspaper columnists, we are night and day when it comes to things like fashion and shopping. I’m not into either. On the other hand, my 78-year-old mother ridded herself of leather pants only a year or two ago and is always trying to add something sparkling to her wardrobe.

My mom loves shopping and pretty much everything that goes with it — browsing around, comparing prices, haggling with the owner, chatting with the cashier by name as she pays (“that’s why they have name tags!”), and then systematically returning almost all the items she spent so much time searching for. That’s right. My mother knows the return policy of pretty much every store in London, Ont.

Each time I visit her we go shopping for something — but it has to be near the store that we’re also returning something to from the previous trip. Last time it was a scarf that “was definitely lavender under those lights in the store but when I got it home it was beige!”

I don’t like shopping for a few reasons but the main one is grappling with the ethical questions involved with making purchases. I know my beer is union-made but what about clothes these days?

Since I can’t figure out the right thing to buy, I avoid shopping for the most part. Unfortunately, Renée tires of seeing me in the same clothes and has visions of a better-dressed partner. She doesn’t seem to value the fact that I’ve had some of my shirts for over a decade and even then they were purchased at Déjà vu or some other cool used clothing store on King Street. What’s a reluctant shopper to do?

I remember my philosophy professor at King’s College trying to teach us that every action a person takes impacts someone in the world somewhere, somehow. I didn’t believe that, of course, and in my ignorance challenged him, asking, “How could it possibly matter whether I choose to wear blue socks or green socks?” Thankfully, I came to understand the reality of the impact that our choices can have on others.

That should be coming clear for all of us in the days since the latest tragedy in a garment factory in Bangladesh. At least 500 people, mostly women, have been killed making clothing for us. Surely, we can’t have dry eyes as we pull on our socks, shirts or other items we own knowing they were made on the backs of people working for so little, in conditions that risk their lives.

Many people are talking about boycotting the companies that have clothing made there but then we hear that could hurt Bangladeshis in a different way. It seems so complicated.

Galen Weston, the head of Loblaw and therefore, the Joe Fresh clothing line, says they will stay in Bangladesh and try to be “a force for good” in the apparel industry. He committed that any garment made for the line will be built in a facility that respects local building codes and labour laws. It must go further than that. Governments must get better trade agreements in this global economy, demanding stricter building codes and labour laws that protect the rights of workers to a safe and healthy environment.

Get more information and let your voice be heard on this issue at maquilasolidarity.org Deirdre Pike is a freelance columnist who lives in Hamilton. Write her at 162 King William St., Suite 103, Hamilton, L8R 3N9, or email at dpikeatthespec@gmail.com