Two Buck Chuck and the Real Price of Cheap

So, I tried several times to comment in the “restaurants” discussion thread in response to people talking about Trader Joe’s, cheap wine and such, and my comment didn’t go through for some reason.  Guess it was the “anti-threadjack” filter PDD has now! (Wouldn’t that be nice!)

My thoughts were these:

A 17-year old woman died from heat exhaustion about a year ago while working in a vineyard that supplies grapes for 2-buck-chuck. Trader Joe’s dodged the responsibility by saying it was a “contractors” problem. That seems slippery ethics to me.

Here’s Food First’s Action Alert on this.

And another blog article.

The United Farm Workers is suing the state of California (partially prompted by this case), to get the state to protect workers from hazardous field conditions.

The reality seems to be that if you get to buy it cheap, someone (workers) or something (the environment) is getting exploited.

So, my question, do we and/or should we think about these kinds of things when we’re looking for a buzz to accompany our dinner?