Supporting a company

[newbie9]

Recently a pretty big online company has been getting some bad press for its workplace conditions in a warehouse. I’m not sure that I should say the name, but it’s made news so you may already know. It was due to some issues of worker treatment and exposure to high and low temperatures. I have mixed opinions on the worker treatment part where the workers are pushed for high production rates and maybe those rates are too high. don’t know if moral issues fit into the high production rates, high turnover rate, using temporary workers, etc. issue. The temperature issues I also have mixed opinions on, but they are less mixed and the company does seem to be directly addressing those issues which, in my opinion, are the bigger issues.

This company sells a lot of products and usually at very good prices. We have technology from them which almost forces us to keep a relationship with them. Basically I have been having a battle on trying to decide whether to continue to support this company with purchases. I have decided to continue to support them basically because their prices are cheap, their customer service is generally good, they do seem to be addressing the issue, I buy from many other companies without really knowing the intricate details of their working conditions, I buy from other companies that sell definitely immoral products (like artificial contraception), etc. I do plan to write them an email though just indicating that I hope they are taking these issues seriously and that there are no further incidents of potentially dangerous working conditions.

Does this seem reasonable and not a selfish/sinful decision where I really should be not supporting this company? I read some comments about some people choosing to boycott this company for the recently brought up issues. A good deal is obviously not worth sinning for, but I’m not sure this falls into the category of sinning or not. I am scrupulous and have really wracked my brain on this one extending it to thoughts of not only me being sinful in now buying from this company, but in causing my family to sin if I give a link to an item on their site as a gift idea. I think I came to the right decision.

At what point would a company’s actions make it so morally reprehensible that we should boycott them? If this company were to have taken these reports and ignored them or continued to get in trouble with OSHA for the same issues then I think a reasonable case could be made to avoid doing business with them. Does this make sense?

 

[Corpus_Cristi]

I’m glad for your confidence in the decision you made. I won’t ask what it is or try to push you in a particular direction even after you have made it, but I will answer the last question you asked and then pose a question in response to it.

The point at which we should boycott a company for the way it conducts itself internally or externally is when it blatantly and directly violates a core Catholic teaching through its words or actions.

That having been said, I’ll ask you this: Is simply boycotting companies enough? To what extent should we try to find out and follow the fiscal interactions between companies, shareholders, organizations, donors, etc.? When our dealings with any entity concern the transfer of funds, there is more or less a steady stream of transactions that go between entities. The point of boycotting a company or the donation of funds or other assets to any entity is to eliminate our culpability for the actions of said entity that are sinful. How much culpability can we claim with the width, depth, and bredth of so much money that is basically being sent on a highway through different pockets?

 

[newbie9]

I won’t ask what it is

Just so there’s no confusion my decision may have been buried in a paragraph, I decided to continue doing business with them, but also write them an email expressing my concerns and desire for them to prevent situations from occurring in the future.

That having been said, I’ll ask you this: Is simply boycotting companies enough? To what extent should we try to find out and follow the fiscal interactions between companies, shareholders, organizations, donors, etc.? When our dealings with any entity concern the transfer of funds, there is more or less a steady stream of transactions that go between entities. The point of boycotting a company or the donation of funds or other assets to any entity is to eliminate our culpability for the actions of said entity that are sinful. How much culpability can we claim with the width, depth, and bredth of so much money that is basically being sent on a highway through different pockets?

In essence, are you saying that it the company itself and those making the questionable decisions who would hold the culpability for its actions and not those purchasing its goods/services which provided the funding for those actions to have occurred? And it shouldn’t really affect our purchasing decisions unless we are actually purchasing the immoral products or if the company makes overt statements on the direct transfer for our funds (something like saying all profits from today/this purchase/etc. will go to immoral cause x)?

 

[Corpus_Cristi]

In essence, are you saying that it the company itself and those making the questionable decisions who would hold the culpability for its actions and not those purchasing its goods/services which provided the funding for those actions to have occurred? And it shouldn’t really affect our purchasing decisions unless we are actually purchasing the immoral products or if the company makes overt statements on the direct transfer for our funds (something like saying all profits from today/this purchase/etc. will go to immoral cause x)?

Well, yes and no. When I posed my question, I posed it not with funding one company in mind, but with funding others that deal with the one company that you just bought from. It would be one thing to say that we should ignore the actions of one company because they’re the one using the money. It just so happens that companies trade with each other (via suppliers, partners, etc.) so if your money is going one place, it will inevitably go another due to the fact that all money that a company uses to operate is fungible. If you give to a company that steadily gives to a company that does something immoral, or if you follow the chain of flow to any number of companies in the sequence of fungible exchanges, how culpable are we for the actions of all of them, not just the one. You have to remember that while we personally have the moral responsibility not to support companies that directly violate the tenets of our faith, so do they. If we give to a company that in any way directly or indirectly deals with another that does this, to what extent can we be safe from sinning? I’m not saying it’s an excuse to fund companies that directly do things that are immoral, I’m just asking whether or not boycotting is the greatest measure we can take and if perhaps it’s become a fad that’s fashionable in today’s world due to political extremism in larger society having somehow infiltrated the way we think as Catholics.

 

[Corpus_Cristi]

A better way to articulate my question is this: Is the issue of supporting companies as cut and dry as we sometimes make it out to be? I think many “answers” to questions like this are given with only an ideal in mind and nothing related to the real world with them. Sure, it’s easy to say “I won’t support company x”, but that doesn’t really solvethe problem of one’s money landing someplace it doesn’t belong, so does it solve the problem indefinitely? A question like this isn’t an easy one. The answer is likewise.