Giant retail companies like Walmart have fattened their wallets by peddling low-cost goods to consumers across the globe. While Walmart has built its empire through the relentless construction of their now ubiquitous retail stores – more than 10,000 worldwide – most shoppers are unaware of the giant factories and vast distribution networks that are required in order to deliver the goods into our homes. But recent exposes of the underbelly of our global goods industry have revealed some of the tragedies faced by those who actually make and deliver our products.

For example, reports of labor abuses and high suicide rates among Chinese electronics workers – who make products for retailers such as Apple – have forced some of us to think twice about our role as responsible consumers and ethical global citizens. Much less visible have been reports from warehouse workers and truck drivers in places like Chicago and southern California, which show how the ruthless pursuit of low-cost goods has also created a downward spiral for workers who distribute consumer goods in the United States.

This wasn't supposed to happen. In fact, after the massive de-industrialization of the 1980s, business and policy leaders across the country argued that the goods movement industry would generate millions of new middle-class jobs for metropolitan regions reeling from the loss of manufacturing employment. In southern California, and countless other regions throughout the country, economic boosters and public officials pursued an import-based doctrine by using public subsidies and favorable growth policies to expand goods-related transportation infrastructure. By 2008 – the height of our most recent import boom – metropolitan regions such as Los Angeles/Long Beach, New York/New Jersey, Seattle/Tacoma, Savannah, Norfolk, and Houston had all emerged as key hubs in a rapidly expanding global supply chain.

But the industry that was supposed to deliver many blue-collar workers and metropolitan regions into the 21st century has, instead, created a new class of low-wage worker. In southern California, port truck drivers and temporary warehouse workers, the very people who keep the flow of goods moving, often toil for low wages and under poor conditions. Many of these workers fly under the radar because they are employed by temporary staffing agencies that funnel the region's emerging Latino and immigrant majority into a vicious cycle of dead-end, low-wage jobs. Most warehouse occupations in inland southern California pay less than a median hourly wage of $10.50, which, for those who can scrape together a 40-hour working week, amounts to less than $22,000 per year – a far cry from the $47,000 average middle-class wage touted by regional policy-makers.

Giant retailers such as Walmart also use subcontractors and temp agencies to shield themselves from taking legal responsibility for what happens inside the warehouses that distribute their goods. These hiring practices make it difficult for workers to exercise their collective bargaining rights, since existing labor law makes organizing independent contractors and temp workers a daunting task. Meanwhile, budget cuts to state regulatory agencies that are supposed to protect workers leave employees more vulnerable to occupational hazards and wage theft. In regions like inland southern California – where most warehouse workers are poor Latinos and immigrants – the region's racialized conservative political establishment has been unresponsive, and sometimes hostile, to labor rights issues.

Why should we care about what happens to warehouse workers? We should care because improving their economic and social opportunities will have a positive effect on the rest of society. Every time we hand over our money to a local big-box retailer, each of us assumes some level of responsibility for what happens along the global supply chain. In 2011, consumers generated $419bn in annual sales for Walmart shareholders. It turns out that buying a cheap pair of socks not only earns Walmart a nice living; it also gives consumers a collective voice that we can use to demand that the people who deliver and make our goods don't pay a heavy price for our right to buy inexpensive products.

Consuming mountains of cheap goods has also produced huge environmental costs, particularly for poor communities located close to distribution hubs. According to the California Air Resources Board, an estimated 3,700 Californians die every year because of medical issues related to the diesel ships, trucks and trains that deliver the goods we consume.

All of this proves that our seemingly individual and private decisions to buy cheap products can generate huge social costs. But history tells us that blue-collar warehouse work doesn't have to mean poverty wages and bad working conditions. In fact, workers have often turned blue-collar jobs into decent employment by organizing for safe conditions and fair pay. As consumers, we can help these efforts by demanding that Walmart and other retailers adopt ethical labor and environmental standards, for both foreign suppliers and domestic distribution workers. Walmart certainly isn't the only company to employ poor hiring practices, but its massive global reach and sophisticated distribution innovations have made it a powerful force in the global goods movement industry.

Walmart purports to act on its customers' behalf in order to "save people money so they can live better". It's time for Walmart, and other mega-retailers, to make sure that their workers also have the opportunity to live better.