Contemporary US Activist Repertoire Technique

Boycotting

I plan to use boycotting to support the restaurant workers at 318 RWU. Boycotting is a very effective way to force social change to happen. Like the Montgomery bus boycott during the civil rights movement, the bus companies were forced to change it policies for passengers.

The GB restaurant is one of the largest restaurants in my neighborhood, and is one of the main attractions for tourists visiting my neighborhood. My family often eats there, and I often walked past these workers picketing in front. This issue is one I have seen first hand, and the people are real people I see with my eyes. It is not one where I only heard about on the media and see televised images of. This issue affects me in many ways. First, these workers are actually people that live in my neighborhood who were unfortunate enough to work for a stonehearted employer. So in some sense, they are my neighbors. Second, my parents are both workers who don’t belong to any union. So if the same thing happens to them, what am I going to do? My parents are laborers and they are currently protected by labor laws. If one employer breaks these laws, what is the probability that other employers, including the ones that employ my parents, will do the same thing? So if I can stop the problem when it is just beginning, I can prevent problems later on.

Boycotting a restaurant is very easy to accomplish. Eating at a dim sum restaurant is not a necessity for me. It might be harder for me to boycott the MTA because they fine workers 2 million dollars for trying to get a viable contract. I have to use the services provided by the MTA at least 6 days a week. However, I do not depend on the food in a dim sum restaurant, so the boycotting was very easy. During the weekends, my family usually gets a table in GB and talk. We will invite cousins, aunts, and uncles to eat dim sum. Then, when we are done, we fight over who pays the bill. But last weekend, I suggest that we go to the park instead of the restaurant. The weather is excellent so we went to the park and exercised for about 2 hours. We got some bread from a bakery and ate breakfast at the park.

I would rather go to the park than to eat at a restaurant on a sunny day. It was more productive for me than just sitting there and talk about stuff. I was able to get my 60 minutes of recommended exercise. It was definitely a good experience. I felt like I did something good by not supporting people who break laws. Instead of giving about $30 to a capitalist, I went to a park free of charge.

Boycotting is very effective because it is so easy to start. Boycotting is like self-work because you are working on yourself. I am telling myself to boycott a restaurant that discriminates against workers. Boycotting is very easy to start because it is free and it does not take up a lot of time. If I join an organization to create change, I usually have to contribute some resource to the organization. If I start protesting in front of the restaurant, I would need to contribute a couple of hours. Boycotting doesn’t require a big start. All you need to do is to stop using a product or service. I can boycott the restaurant by not eating there, and convince my family and friends to not eat there. Then, if my family and friends are passionate enough about the effort, they can convince their family and friends. This will spread very easily. Anybody can boycott the things they feel aren’t right. My grandmother can boycott the restaurant; so can my 7-year-old cousin.

There aren’t many limitations to boycotting. If the bus riders can change the racial separation laws that were so prevalent and rigid, there isn’t much a boycott can’t do. Especially in this capitalistic society, people live by making profit. If profit starts to decline, one’s survival is in peril. Profit depends on the purchasing power of consumers, so if the consumers don’t exercise their purchasing power, the capitalist will feel some need to change.

There is a limitation to boycotting. The bigger the problem, the bigger the boycott should be for it to be effective. For example, if I want to stop Mars from selling non-fair-trade chocolate, I personally can boycott Mars Bars. But to be effective, I will need more people to boycott in order to pressure the corporation to create change. However, if it is just a small thing like stop a small shop from selling certain goods, then just having the people in the neighborhood boycott the shop is enough.

Also, boycotting can only affect problem involving a product or a service, not political movements. Like the Montgomery bus boycott can only affect the bus companies, but not actually the racial discrimination itself.