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Annual Global Boycott

DRAFT: Annual Global Boycott: A Proposal

If done right, an Annual Global Boycott could persuade a specific corporation to protect the environment, improve working conditions, safeguard human rights, or contribute to human progress in some other way. These victories, in turn, could convince other corporations to negotiate positive changes in their policies and practices in order to avoid a boycott. To achieve this goal, a broad, massive democratic coalition is needed.

After identifying a timely, top priority, winnable demand each year that some existing organization (or organizations) has already fully researched and attempted to resolve without success, the Annual Global Boycott coalition would mobilize consumers to stop buying a product (or products) from that corporation. The coalition would then negotiate with the corporation to reach a settlement, after which it would suspend the boycott.

Other organizations could engage in other nonviolent actions in support of the boycott.

Sociopolitical actions elicit more participation if they meet the following requirements:

• Provide potential activists with confidence that enough people will be participating to offer a good chance that their efforts will be effective.
• Reassure busy people that they can participate without consuming too much of their time, so they can still address their daily concerns.
• Persuade activist organizations to temporarily set aside their primary concerns in order to briefly support one another on a timely issue.
• Give participants a voice in determining the focus of the action.

An Annual Global Boycott could fulfill all of these requirements and have an enormous impact. An Annual Global Boycott could fulfill all of these requirements and have an enormous impact. The highly successful Blog Action Day, an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day, illustrates how the Internet can be used for unified global projects. In 2009, 13,605 blogs from 156 countries with more than 18 million readers conducted discussions about climate change.

As the wikipedia reports:

In August 2006, the Christian Science Monitor, in an article headlined “Consumer Boycotts by Groups Like OCA & Greenpeace Are Having a Major Impact,” reported:

Two reports by the Multinational Monitor, “Victories! Justice! The People’s Triumphs Over Corporate Power” and “Taking On Corporate Power – And Winning” reported on 50 recent victories that illustrate how:

Major organizations that conduct consumer boycotts include:

• Organic Consumers Association -- focuses on promoting the views and interests of the nation's organic consumers.
• Business Ethics Network -- lists many victories on its website.
• ForestEthics -- focuses on climate change and protecting endangered forests and wild places, wildlife, and human well-being.
• Greenpeace -- acts globally to protect and conserve the environment and promote peace.

Based in the United Kingdom, Ethical Consumer maintains a list of scores of current consumer boycotts. Some of the boycotts listed include:

• Shell – Until the peoples of the Ogoni region in Nigeria receive a fair share of profits from oil extraction, and are able to live in better environmental conditions.
• Nestlé – for its irresponsible marketing of baby milk formula which infringes the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.
• Kimberly-Clark – for destroying ancient forest in North America for tissue brands such as Kleenex and Andrex.
• Kellogg's – for using sugar from genetically engineered sugar beets in its products.
• Enterprise Rent-a-Car – for firing workers seeking to unionize at its Boston airport facility.
• Domino's Pizza – for forcing delivery workers to work over 60 hours per week and refused to pay them overtime and minimum wage.
• Coca-Cola – for its repression of trade union activity in Colombia and its depletion of groundwater resources in India.
• Toyota – In June 2008 Burma Campaign UK updated their 'dirty list' of companies that are directly or indirectly helping to finance Burma’s brutal military dictatorship. BCUK call on people to contact companies listed to sever business ties with Burma. And, where appropriate, let them know you'll be boycotting their products until they do. Fifty new companies were added including Toyota.

If many or most of the organizations that engage in consumer boycotts as well as other groups that lend their support from time to time to such boycotts were to unite in an Annual Global Boycott focused on a top priority, winnable campaign in need of additional support, this consumer movement could boost its power considerably.

Following is a specific proposal for how we can build this coalition with member-controlled organizations that utilize either direct or representative democracy - that is, members either directly set policy and select leaders or they elect a governing board that does so. If this governing board selects representatives to regional, national, or global bodies, each of those bodies may also select a representative to the Organizing Committee.

1. An existing member-controlled organization endorses this proposal and selects a representative to the organizing committee.
2. A record of all key decisions is posted on the Web.
3. That initial representative recruits another member-controlled organization to endorse this proposal and select a representative to the organizing committee.
4. Those two representative select a third, the three-member committee selects a fourth, and so on until a diverse body that represents the full range of progressive issues is established and ready to proceed. In this way, diversity, stability, consistency, and compatibility will be maximized, along with a mechanism for democratic accountability.
5. The organizing committee establishes a website, extends a wide invitation to member-controlled organizations throughout the world to join, and reviews the applications to verify that the applicant is member-controlled and has endorsed this proposal. Once accepted, these organizations select a representative to the organizing committee, which as its size increases, delegates responsibilities to smaller, more manageable groups.
6. Once the organizing committee is ready, it initiates the process of forming a governing board which incorporates the Annual Global Boycott, establishes written policies to guide the organization, hires an Executive Director (ED) to manage the implementation of those policies, and regularly evaluates the ED. Though the ED is ultimately responsible for the effective implementation of Board policies, the Board directs the ED to utilize democratic management methods.
7. Once the governing board is operating, the organizing committee transforms into an advisory committee and continues to recruit new members in the same manner as before.
8. Boycott staff proceed to:
   1. Recruit individual members who endorse the project and pledge that they will likely support the annual boycott.
   2. Recruit other organizations to affiliate with the Boycott as organizational members.
   3. Establish a Web-based forum for members to propose and discuss possible boycotts for next year’s focus.
9. Each October, Boycott staff digest the proposals for next year’s boycott, circulate a report on these options with pro and con arguments for each, and ask members to rank them on a Web-based form.
10. Each November, organizational members send delegates to a global convention at which options are discussed face-to-face and a recommendation (or recommendations) is sent to the central office. This convention also selects a representative, diverse task force to make the final decision on next year’s boycott in late December. This decision will draw on the Web-based forum, the October ranking, the November convention recommendation(s), and subsequent events bearing on the viability of the major options. The task force deliberations will be transparent.
11. On January 1, the Annual Global Boycott begins. Boycott staff will conduct negotiations with the target. Proposed agreements will be presented to the elected task force, which will decide if and when to call off the boycott.

The October straw poll and the recommendation(s) at the November convention would be non-binding because these events would be open to all members, which means that there would be no way to assure that the people voting were representative of the coalition’s diverse global membership.

The preliminary organizing might take two or three years before Boycott staff decides the project has marshaled enough participation to be effective and initiates the decision-making process (with the October straw poll).

With a careful, deliberate organizing process of this sort, an Annual Global Boycott could make a major contribution to meaningful global progress.

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