Why doesn’t this surprise me? Five days ago yet another multinational American apparel company was found to have been using slave labor to knit together cute panties and sexy lingerie. Jonathan Tasini with Huffington Post wrote a scathingly revealing piece chronicling years of wretched working conditions for their workers in Jordan sweatshops. Here are the highlights:

• Workers toil from 7am-10pm working 14-15 each day and up to 105 hours per week.
• Workers are allowed just 3.3 minutes to sew each $14 Victoria’s Secret women’s bikini, for which they are paid four cents. That’s 3/10ths of one percent of the bikini’s cost.
• Treatment is very rough, as managers and supervisors scream at the foreign guest workers to move faster to complete their high production goals. Workers who fall behind on their production goals, or who make even a minor error, can be slapped and beaten.
• None of the workers have been provided their necessary residency permits, without which they cannot venture outside the industrial park without fear of being stopped by the police and perhaps imprisoned for lack of proper documents.
• Limited Brands, the parent of Victoria’s Secret reported a profit of $12 million dollars last quarter, compared with a profit of $23 million a year ago.
• The Limited Brands CEO has an annual salary of $6.6 million.

I have no words.

There is no chance in hell Limited did not know about these conditions. Any first semester accounting major could see that they were making a HEALTHY margin on their products, let alone those counting beans back at head quarters. Surely someone would have wondered why on earthy they only had to pay their contractors $4000 (or so) for 100,000 bikini panties. Shouldn’t SOMEONE have thought that didn’t make any sense?

Last week I wrote about the City of New York and Gap employing slave labor in India, only to receive a helping of egg on their face once they were exposed in the media. I challenged myself and other followers of Jesus to demand corporations employ fair, safe and humane working standards and practices and for the Church to keep USA Inc. accountable to slave labor and subhuman working conditions. Enough is enough, the Body of Christ needs to lead the charge to hold American corporations responsible for the wicked, oppresive, unjust practices against non-Americans.

But I wonder if it’s a loosing battle. I mean, will anyone really respond? Will anyone really change their spending habits based on the sinful, wicked, oppressive practices of USA Inc., especially if it affects their own pocketbooks? As one commentor in my last posted responded, what can we really practically do in the face of such overwhelming injustice?

To be honest I’m not sure what to do. All I know is Beings crafted after the image of God are being enslaved, abused, and oppressed by my country for the love of Money. That’s disgusting. Probably the only power I have in the face of this evil is the power of choice in where I spend my money, and I am to respond to the way of Jesus and His teachings on Kingdom of heaven in how I spend it.

If you feel the same and have a voice on the internet, link back to this post and express your own thoughts on the unjust, inhumane actions of American corporations.

-jeremy