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Types of Boycotts

By DHC
Posted 2022-04-18 11 min read

Pretty much every time anything that vaguely looks like a union exists, there are a group of consumers who start calling for a boycott. They will circulate this message widely and make it seem like “the way to support the union.”

But in truth these efforts can actually do serious damage to the actual organizing.

Types of Boycotts

There are essentially four broad categories of things that often get called boycotts (there are other models, but this is one that I like):

  1. Consumer Boycotts
  2. Solidarity Boycotts
  3. Symbolic Boycotts
  4. Moral Purchasing

All four of these get called “boycotts” but in truth refer to three very different things. What it comes down to is “what are you trying to accomplish” and “with what power.”

Sometimes things also involve elements of multiple types, but that could be another essay.

Consumer Boycotts

When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him – you must shun him in the streets of the town – you must shun him in the shop – you must shun him on the fair green and in the market place, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him in moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of the country, as if he were the leper of old – you must show him your detestation of the crime he committed. [Charles Parnell at Ennis in County Claire, which became the foundation of pressure method on Charles Boycott]

[1, Pp. 119-120]

A consumer boycott is the “classical” model of a boycott where a group of consumers organize to not engage with a business or set of businesses so long as some state or condition holds true.

There are variations, but the basic form is:

  1. Find people who are consumers of the product
  2. Get them to agree to not purchase the product until after a situation is resolved
  3. Keep up the pressure and continue to organize until the company relents
  4. Resume normal purchasing behavior once victory is won

For example, there have been a few successful boycott campaigns around advertising on some show or another. These work by looking for advertisers on the show and getting a group of people who might normally buy those products—regardless of whether they watch the show in question—and promise to not purchase until after they stop advertising.

A flier from the 1970s and 80s boycott of Nestlé

[2]

Another example of this is when Nestlé advertised their infant formula as “better than breastmilk” in the 1970s. A worldwide boycott ensued and only ended when they agreed to comply with guidelines on advertising from the WHO.

Campaigns like this depend on people who are purchasing the product withholding their purchases for a period of time until the boycott has ended. Building a consumer boycott requires finding people who use the service or buy the product and convincing them on a short-term good to pressure the company in question.

I can’t boycott men’s soccer because I don’t watch men’s soccer and am not going to start pretty much no matter what they do. This form of a boycott relies on consumer purchasing power, and if I’m not willing to purchase the product even if things change, then I can’t exactly threaten them by removing what I am already not giving them. If I wanted to build a boycott to pressure them, I would have to find a way to convince people who are true fans of men’s soccer, not just people like me.

Solidarity Boycotts

Solidarity boycotts are where you act at the behest of the workers and refrain from purchasing a product at their request. Usually while they are striking.

The idea here is that you are amplifying the union’s power: by not purchasing, you are demonstrating to the company that the union has teeth and that failure to acquiese will be disasterous to the company.

There have been many successful solidarity boycotts. Both primary boycotts (boycotting a grocery store because the workers are striking over their working conditions) and secondary boycotts (boycotting a grocery store because they sell, e.g., grapes and the grape workers are striking over their working conditions).

But it isn’t always the right strategy. A boycott is an escalation, something that unions want to keep in their pocket but which jumping to right off the bat means that they don’t have that escalation tool for later. There are even some situations where not purchasing when you normally would can act like a scab by reducing the amount of work that needs to get done. It is difficult to know for sure unless you work at the company, and so it works best to listen to guidance of their union to know what to do.

Sometimes it is also more nuanced than simply “don’t buy”:

It should go without saying that you aren’t supporting the workers if you do this of your own volition, and boycotting without the union’s request can seriously hurt their organizing efforts.

Symbolic Boycotts

It’s more “symbolic than substantial,” but that doesn’t mean it’s consequence-free.

[3]

A lot of boycotts the intent is not to actually put any pressure at all on the company per se, or perhaps only indirect pressure for the future. The goal of such is to get people activated about some other issue. By calling for a boycott the hope is that they will raise awareness about that issue and bring focus onto something that is being neglected.

Mostly symbolic strikes are good for something other than applying pressure to a company: Bringing public attention on a much ignored issue. Often one that is shared between groups. They can be used by unions for structure testing, but for the most part their goals aren’t about worker power, they are about shining a light in the darkness.

In this way of thinking, #BoycottMulan wasn’t about Mulan at all. Not really.

It was about Hong Kong.

The point was not reducing support for Mulan. The point wasn’t to make Mulan crash. The point wasn’t to put screws into Disney or make Disney change their behavior (though if they made it sufficiently uncomfortable for them that was a nice perk). The point wasn’t what the actress said specifically or why she said it. The point was that China’s treatment of HK is reprehensible, and what the actress said and what happened was a vehicle to shine a light on it. That doesn’t mean that what she was was remotely okay, but it also means that the reason why she said it is kind of irrelevant: It doesn’t matter if she must say things like that to be successful in China, because the point isn’t about her, or Disney per se, it’s about China.

Similarly, Cixin Liu’s comments and fame are being used, via calls to boycott Three Body Problem, to bring attention to the genocide happening right now, right this second. It doesn’t matter why he said it, that’s not the point. The problem is that not enough people are aware of the attrocity happening.

With symbolic boycotts it often isn’t relevant if you ultimately end up seeing it, reading it, etc. Because the goal was much greater.

Moral Purchasing

The way we spend our money can help to change the world.

[4]

Moral purchasing—typified by movements and groups such as Ethical Consumer—is not attempting to influence corporate behavior so much as individual behavior. Moral purchasing is often conflated with a boycott but is something else entirely: an attempt to make the most moral choices possible given the capitalist dystopia.

For example, a lot of people in the 70s and 80s started avoiding veal due to the success of several anti-veal campaigns.

To the extent that these can be cosidered “boycotts” they are qualitatively different from consumer boycotts: the goal is not to get back to eating veal (or meat) and the companies that produce veal are not being boycott (usually). By spending money and/or putting attention on “more ethical” causes, the goal is to shape the world accordingly.

Supporting Unions

A lot of people like to insert their own views about what “should” support a union, or they want to “show solidarity” with a union and so they reach for the tool they have seen used in the past: the boycott.

"Boycotting without union support can hurt organizing." Joey: "Boycott to support the union!"

Sometimes they’ll even put the union logo or branding onto it, making it to all perspectives as if it is actually coming from the union.

This came up pronouncedly when a group of people decided to “boycott Amazon” during a union drive. Which was exactly the wrong time to be doing such:

"A boycott like this really just plays into management’s hands by giving ammunition to the idea that this is going to be about conflict all the time and that you’re going to have outside people interfering in your life, which isn’t what a union is," said Connor Lewis, editor for the labor publication Strikewave.

[5]

This also came up during the IATSE strike authorization:

It is incredibly important to listen to the union in these situations. Not just individual members—who do not speak for the union as a whole—but to the union itself. You aren’t helping the union if you aren’t doing what they ask and are speaking over them.

The idea of “consumers should never cross a picket line” is a good starting point, but it is just that: a starting point. When there is no picket line then you aren’t “crossing the picket line” to go to a company.

Another variation in the “speaking over the union” is when people insert their own views over what the union is promoting. For example, a relativley common pattern is something like:

  1. There’s a call by a union to, e.g., boycott Apple.
  2. Someone says in response “Yes! Never buy Apple products! They are anti-consumer!”

Regardless of your position on Apple’s market position, this is speaking over the workers. It isn’t doing what the union has requested, it is substituting your own agenda for theirs.

"Don't make me tap the sign." "If you aren't doing what the union is asking, you aren't supporting the union."

This isn’t to say that you should purchase from Apple, or Amazon, or whoever if that doesn’t fit within your morals. That is instead to say that you aren’t supporting the union by telling people “never purchase” when the request is not that.

Similarly, it is important to communicate within the domain of the requested action. So if the request is “don’t buy made-in-Mexico Nabisco products” then the request isn’t “don’t buy Nabisco products” without qualifier.

It’s really incredibly frustrating to see eight million twitter messages that all read “BOYCOTT TO SUPPORT THE UNION” and calling people “scabs” if they don’t when there was no request to boycott and the union does have specific requests that aren’t being shared.

It sucks the air out of the room.

Conclusion

This is a basic rundown of how I think and talk about types of boycotts. Some main takeaways:

  1. Not all things that are called boycotts are actually boycotts.
  2. The moral calculus on breaking ranks varies with the circumstances. Not participating in a symbolic boycott is a very different situation from not participating in a solidarity boycott, but also the infrastructure of support looks very different. In a symbolic boycott there is very rarely any infrastructure to support people who might be impacted, in a solidarity boycott you can often find resources and guides to help obviate the pain, at least for a little while.
  3. Listen to the organizers on the ground. You don’t have to agree with them, but they are usually the ones with the most context and understanding, so let them lead.

References

[1]   T. E. Hachey, J. M. Hernon, and L. J. McCaffrey, The Irish Experience: A Concise History. Armonk, N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, 1996.

[2]   O. P. I. R. G. Toronto, “Boycott Nestle,” Alternative Toronto. 1977. [Online; accessed on 16 April 2022]

[3]   J. Kirby, “What the US’s diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics does — and doesn’t — mean,” Vox, 10 Dec. 2021, [Online; accessed on 16 April 2022]

[4]   J. Hunt, “Why Shop Ethically?,” Ethical Consumer, 06 Apr. 2021, [Online; accessed on 16 April 2022]

[5]   A. Mak, “The Bizarre Amazon Boycott That Its Unionizing Workers Never Asked For,” Slate, 09 Mar. 2021, [Online; accessed on 17 April 2022]

organizing, solidarity
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This post is licensed under CC BY ND 4.0 by the author.
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