I have to admit that I’ve never quite understood the whole Black Friday craze. Waiting for hours in the cold to buy a discounted DVD player has never seemed much of an appeal to me, and I always find myself deeply disturbed at the scenes of mayhem that inevitably seem to follow. Morally, I find it problematic that when so many people are really hurting financially, we are all being encouraged to spend in order to stimulate the economy. I’m sure some economist could explain it to me, but when jobs are scarce and unemployment is on the rise, it seems most prudent this Thanksgiving to put that Black Friday money into a rainy day fund.
This year’s Black Friday is even more morally problematic. In order to increase profits, stores are opening on Thanksgiving afternoon or at midnight that day, cutting into the time that workers get to spend with their families. Walmart is opening at 10 p.m., the earliest it has ever opened, requiring employees to come in by 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Workers at Best Buy and Target are protesting this infringement of their rights and dignity as workers. The petition against Best Buy, which has generated more than 8000 signatures, puts it well:
“A full holiday with family is not just for the elite of this nation — all Americans should be able to break bread with loved ones and get a good night’s rest on Thanksgiving!”
Target employee Anthony Hardwick has created an online petition which has generated over 37000 signatures on the website Change.org. However, he now fears losing his job in this tough economy after drawing media attention to Target’s actions: “I was so disappointed the day I found out about this because I did the math in my head and I was going to have to go to bed in the early afternoon on Thanksgiving to go in and work 10 hours,” Hardwick said in a telephone interview. “Everyone at work was resigned because the economy is bad and so our employer has us over a barrel.”
A key principle of Catholic Social Teaching is the dignity and rights of workers, which includes not only the right to a job, a fair wage, and safe working conditions, but also the rest and leisure necessary to flourish as human beings. It is unjust to make workers sacrifice their holiday in order to meet consumer demand. However, I hesitate to reserve blame only to Target and Best Buy as corporations. All of us as consumers have contributed to this “social sin.” It is our own desires and buying habits that have created this system of injustice. As the Occupy Wall Street movement has turned our attention to corporate activity, this Thanksgiving, I think we all need to reexamine our own consumer desires and Black Friday traditions. As for me and my house, we are staying home.
FWIW, although this is an extra profit opportunity for the companies that are making a profit, it can often be a make-or-break time for the companies which aren’t doing well. A couple years back, I was working for a big consumer electronics retailer (though I dealt with their website sales, I didn’t work in a store) and how the couple weeks starting with the Thanksgiving Weekend sales went determined whether the company made a profit or lost money for the year — which in turn determined whether they would be layoffs in the new year, whether anyone got a raise that year, etc.
As such, there was one year when I had to rush out of a big family Thanksgiving right before dinner was served in order to get my laptop and get a bunch of offers fixed with the website team calling in from India. (I made it back in time for cold turkey and fresh pie.) It was lousy, but since we were all desperately hoping to have jobs the next year I was mostly hoping that people would turn out rather than staying away (or shoping at a rival like Best Buy or WalMart.)
One is pulled both ways. On the one hand, seeing so much uncertainty in the economy, I am certainly trying to be very prudent this year in family spending — putting away savings and paying off debt. On the other, I can’t help remembering that for a lot of people working in retail and restaurants and such, that kind of behavior by a lot of people will end up meaning that more people will see hours cut or layoffs. No one is needed to staff and empty store.
Thanks DarwinCatholic. I am definitely sympathetic to your point. However, I am betting that Black Friday isn’t really going to make or break Target, Best Buy, or Walmart. Nevertheless, I like thinking of Black Friday as a structural sin–social structures are never changed without hurting people who depend on those structures, no matter how unjust they are. Ultimately, I think it would be better if Black Friday didn’t exist, but to mobilize consumers to make this a reality would likely have the undesired consequences of hurting workers too.
How do other readers navigate questions like this where no matter what you choose, vulnerable populations are going to suffer?
Beth,
Thanks for posting. Like you, I get quite angry when I see stores open on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc. It always makes me frustrated that people, who do not need to, are forced to work (I say do not need to – as there are many jobs which require people to work holidays – for ex: as a nurse, my mom had to rotate working holidays like thanksgiving – but Walmart, Target, these do not NEED to be open).
What struck me though is your statement about prudence. Yes, it is prudent to save—but that also exposes quite clearly the fundamental problem with our economic system. (Capitalism doesn’t flourish on prudence). I agree with you that the moral action is to be prudent; but the reality that as a nation we have not really confronted – what do you do when being prudent, as a society, means slower economic recovery and prolonged sluggishness? The HIGHs that we are still coming down from were predicated on such imprudence on behalf of individuals, the financial sector, etc. we can’t go back to that lifestyle, it isn’t sustainable. Yet, we have a consumer based economy and capitalist system – so if there isn’t a market with consumers – businesses won’t produce and by extension won’t hire to expand. What if this is not a temporary situation but the new normal? what if high unemployment is the new normal ? we are going to have to start thinking differently about what it means, as a society, in the wake of that possibility….if we cannot consume/buy our way out of this economic crisis – what new alternatives do we try? (or oldies but not tried in quite some time ideas).
Ditto on the Black Friday snub. My family’s gone a step further: we’ve taken the commerce out of our Christmas by foregoing all the gift buying and exchanging. In the process, we’ve gained Advent and a better Christmas, even if we’re not doing our part to prop up the economy at the present moment. Perhaps we’re also contributing in some very small way to the development of a culture that can regain economic life on better terms.
Kudos, Steve. You are an example to us all.