c. 2004 Religion News Service

(Tom Beaudoin is assistant professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University in California and the author of “Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are With What We Buy.”)

(UNDATED) You won’t see this fact touted in any clothing ads, but more of us will soon be wearing Mexican jeans. Yet another American clothing manufacturer _ VF Jeanswear, maker of Wrangler and Lee jeans _ recently announced it is moving south of the border to save money.

According to government data provided by the National Labor Committee, 96.6 percent of all the clothing we buy in the United States is imported. If you want to see how your body is implicated in the global economy, just look at the tag on your shirt, pants or underwear _ you will likely find that you are strung up by your clothing in a web of labor that crisscrosses the Earth.

That is not likely to change. Every week, it seems, another American corporation pulls up stakes and moves abroad, to a place where goods can be produced more cheaply and efficiently. And each time it happens, the corporate chiefs say exactly what Sam Tucker, vice president for human resources at VF Jeanswear, told the New York Times: “If we could, we would stay. But in order to make products competitive, we don’t have much choice.”

This sort of logic is fueling a race to the bottom around the world, where companies stay in countries only so long as they can exploit the labor and environment, jumping through legal and tax loopholes, only to cut and run when the next rung down the ladder opens up.

Tucker and other corporate leaders who make such claims underestimate the millions of American consumers who want to shop with their consciences, even with their faith. These consumers want more from their products than just rock-bottom prices. They want to better integrate who they are spiritually with what they buy. They want clothing and other consumer goods made under humane conditions, with dignity protected for all those who are affected by production _ those who make or harvest, stitch, sew or ship our stuff.

In short, there are many Americans who want to be able to buy their products with a cleaner conscience, and who would love to know that their purchase was supporting the global common good, not exploiting an impoverished population or rewarding amoral corporations.

Perhaps the outsourcing of our clothing is a fait accompli. We cannot turn back the clock on globalization. But what would happen if clothing companies had the moral courage and business sense to appeal to what is best in American consumers _ our generosity _ instead of what is worst about us _ our selfishness?

The fair-trade coffee company Equal Exchange symbolizes this new economic and ethical landscape. The West Bridgewater, Mass., company started in 1986, aiming to connect ethically minded consumers with both high-quality coffee and hard-working, fairly treated coffee farmers around the world. Equal Exchange has happily found a dedicated and continually expanding base of American customers. They have averaged over 30 percent growth annually during those 18 years, and their impressive $10 million revenue in 2002 is projected to reach $16 million this year. Last year, thousands of customers purchased more than 3 million pounds of Equal Exchange coffee, allowing them to pay their farmer partners $2.2 million more than these farmers would have received under normal market terms.

It is precisely such evidence of companies (and all their workers) being rewarded for doing the right thing that is inspiring some major established coffee companies, like Starbucks, to add fair-trade items to their menu. Just as it is taking the success of small, fair-trade coffee businesses to inspire major brands to begin to try selling fair trade, so too may it take the power of conscientious consumers shifting their spending money to small, sweat-free clothing manufacturers to get the attention of the bigger companies.

Those of us who want to shop with a conscience can do a better job supporting those smaller independent companies that are trying to do the right thing. We will have begun to succeed when we start seeing ads for America’s favorite brands that feature not only images of youth, sexiness and affordability, but of justice for all the workers whose labor keeps the brand products circulating.

When we finally walk into coffee shops and see profiles of the actual farmers who harvest the beans, or features in department stores about the women who sew the clothes, we will know that with the help of consumers inspired by conscience, we have reversed the race to the bottom.

It will be a good day for America when corporations compete for bragging rights about which company is most humane to its workers. That will be an advertisement worth watching.

KRE/PH END BEAUDOIN