Economic Justice

Principles from Which We Work and Live

1. Work should benefit real human needs. While we recognize that all human beings must provide for their needs, not all work leads to human betterment, and we should do what we can to help those in jobs that cause harm to the world (e.g. in factories making land mines) to find more fitting labor. No job should be justified just because it generates income.
2. The health of the earth should be protected and preserved as goods are being produced and services are being provided. Once again, no job should be justified just because it generates income, if it unduly harms the earth.
3. Workers should be recompensed justly for their toil. This means providing workers with a living wage, i.e. enough money to support a household with necessities for life in the local economy. In this regard, companies should see their primary responsibility to their workers and customers, not as providing generous dividends for their investors.
4. Workers should be accorded the respect and dignity they deserve. Their physical, mental, and emotional health should be protected, not compromised.
5. Unions are workers' best protection from exploitation.
6. We should consume (or refuse to consume) goods and services in ways that protect the earth and provide for the needs of workers.
7. Free trade should be fair trade.
8. We support global awareness and empathy, but not corporate globalization.

Suggestions for Action

In wording from its website, "Jubilee + is committed to developing a new, more accountable and transparent process for sovereign lending, borrowing and debt negotiations - with human rights at the centre of its focus; highlighting and developing policies for financing development in a more self-reliant way, without recourse to dependency on foreign donors and creditors; opening up international financial institutions and markets to democratic scrutiny and accountability by civil society."

Support anti-sweatshop/"clean clothes" campaigns "Clean clothes" are those made under fair-labor, non-sweatshop conditions. In Thurston County, the major purpose of the clean-clothes campaign is to persuade municipal divisions (e.g. police and fire departments) not to buy uniforms made by sweatshop labor. However, just finding out the real source of clothing is difficult because of out-sourcing by many manufacturers.

Once clean sources are found, "sweatshop-free" labels for clothing from them would be handy, as would positive public announcements that the local municipal forces are wearing uniforms from them.

Knowledgeable, deliberate, aware consumption (from the awareness that being consumers is part of the problem).

• Cooperative food buying
• Sponsoring local organic farms (e.g. CSA farms)
• TILL
• Using shopping guides like the Council for Economic Priorities' Shopping for a Better World
• Compiling a similar directory of local small, independent producers of goods/\ markets/businesses we wish to sustain
• Sponsoring local residents in learning useful trades (e.g. shoemaking) that would benefit the public (a long-term, but beneficial process)
• Developing a local community currency (like that in Ithaca, NY) or means of bartering services
• Affiliating with Jobs with Justice
• Further educating ourselves and our chapters through speakers (like Lois Canright, Fred Miller and Sally Soriano) and independent news/advice sources (like Indymedia, rabble rousers, The Simple Living network).

Influencing legislators

• Attending party caucuses-often enables one to submit items to the party platform
• Creating relationships with legislators' staff people
• Writing legislators
• Making appointments to talk with legislators directly (takes only 10-15 minutes, but much more effective than just letters, which are mostly just tallied, anyway)
• Signing anti-FTAA proclamation
• Getting local governmental bodies to come out formally against the FTAA

Joining Jubilee Northwest coalition to support debt relief to developing countries

Further networking with one another to share ideas, tactics, success stories, and advice