The Worst Computer Virus

Here's one virus that your anti-bug software won't catch. Your computer-the one that you are on right now while reading this!-might have parts made by a worker in Mexico or Thailand working for a few dollars a day under unhealthy or unsafe conditions.

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) has been trying to pressure computer giants Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM to voluntarily adopt a new code of conduct for the companies that supply it with parts. CAFOD wants these three giants to simply say, "We will no longer buy parts from you unless you guarantee your employees safe factory conditions."

So far, Dell has agreed. In Thailand, a worker making hard drives is paid about $4.60 a day, working 10-13 hours. Contrast that to the $250,000 a day that Dell's chief executive officer made in 2003, according to its shareholders report.

IBM has written to CAFOD, but CAFOD is not happy with IBM's lukewarm response. CAFOD has not heard from Hewlett-Packard yet.

CAFOD's campaign is called "Clean Up Your Computer," and more information can be found in the Trade Justice Campaign section of their website . You can even write a letter to IBM and Hewlett-Packard through the web site.

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development began in England in 1961, when some mothers bonded together to fast and pray for mothers in the Dominican Republic who were losing their infants to malnutrition and diseases that could easily be cured if modern medicine was available. A few years later, the bishops of England and Wales officially founded CAFOD and since then, it has helped countless numbers of people in various developing or poor nations. It's the British and Welsh equivalent to Catholic Relief Services in the U.S.

Catholic Connections

"There must be a continued study of the subject of work [the worker] and the subject's living conditions. In order to achieve social justice in the various parts of the world, in the various countries and in the relationships between them, there is a need for ever new movements of solidarity of the workers and for the workers. This solidarity must be present whenever it is called for by the social degrading of the worker, by exploitation of workers and by the growing areas of poverty and even hunger. The church is firmly committed to this cause, for we consider it our mission, our service, a proof of our fidelity to Christ."
- Pope John Paul II, On Human Work, #8

Reflection Questions

Why is it important that we know where the things that we use every day come from, and how the workers who made them are treated?

Join us in our Forum to discuss these questions!