{"id":46358,"date":"2026-01-27T21:21:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T05:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=46358"},"modified":"2026-01-27T21:21:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T05:21:48","slug":"can-boycotts-help-workers-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/can-boycotts-help-workers-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Boycotts Help Workers Win?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN LERNER<\/a> (Jacobin.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer boycotts have a storied history in labor struggles like the United Farm Workers\u2019 organizing campaigns in the 1970s. But they\u2019re difficult to pull off. Veteran union organizer Stephen Lerner explains when a boycott can work for workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Delegates to the Denver Area Labor Federation convention marching in support of the United Farm Workers boycott, February 27, 1976. (Denver Post via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jacobin<\/em>\u2018s winter issue, \u201cMunicipal Socialism,\u201d is out now. Follow this link to get a discounted subscription to our beautiful print quarterly.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Zohran Can Learn From the Sewer Socialists<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

CHRIS MAISANO<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Leaning Tower Leaned Left<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

DAVID BRODER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No War but Artisanal Doughnut War<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

AMBER A\u2019LEE FROST<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

America Can\u2019t Build Homes Anymore<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

RYAN COOPER<\/a> INTERVIEW BY ERIC BLANC<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While boycott campaigns generally have a mixed record<\/a> at best, this tactic was used successfully in the recent unionization and first contract victories at Burgerville<\/a> in Oregon as well as Spot Coffee<\/a> in western New York, a campaign that set<\/a> the stage for the subsequent Starbucks upsurge. Raising the slogan \u201cNo Contract, No Field Trips<\/a>,\u201d unionizing workers at Medieval Times in New Jersey and California are now working with K-12 teachers to boycott the company until it stops its alleged union busting. And just last week, after months<\/a> of student organizing and protest, Cornell University agreed to stop<\/a> selling and serving Starbucks on campus due to the company\u2019s flagrant violation of federal labor law. This victory is spurring a push to boycott Starbucks at colleges<\/a> across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With workers and unions beginning to reconsider the potentialities and pitfalls of boycotts, it makes sense to take a look back at the famous boycott campaigns led by the United Farm Workers (UFW) from 1965 through 1975 to demand that agricultural companies recognize and bargain with their union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To discuss the lessons of the victorious UFW boycotts, and the dynamics of this tactic generally, Jacobin<\/em>\u2019s Eric Blanc sat down with Stephen Lerner, whose long<\/a> and celebrated<\/a> organizing history began as a volunteer for the UFW in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

ERIC BLANC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the most general level, what do you see as the big lessons of the UFW boycott?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHEN LERNER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, you need a favorable context for a national boycott to work, a moment where lots of people care or could be convinced to care. In most conditions, boycotts don\u2019t work; they\u2019re usually called by unions when we know we\u2019ve lost. But the UFW boycott wasn\u2019t like that at all \u2014 it was part of a plan to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When an opening does <\/em>exist, then you need to constantly be asking: How do we maximize disruption, and how do we maximize publicity? To achieve these two goals, you need a huge amount of on-the-ground organizing. You can\u2019t just call a boycott and hope somehow customer pressure will bring companies to the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you need to seize a favorable context and then need real organizing on multiple levels, both in terms of mass work to get the word out, but also directly to disrupt profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ERIC BLANC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you briefly describe the context of the UFW boycott?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHEN LERNER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give you a sense of the moment, I dropped out of high school to work on the boycott full-time. We really thought radical change was possible. So the boycott existed at a moment of time where there was a lot of activism, a lot of excitement \u2014 the whole thing was grounded in a much bigger movement.Successful boycotts require a combination of workers organizing and taking action that is then supported by a broader public campaign.<\/q><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the farmworkers\u2019 struggle really captured people\u2019s imagination. It wasn\u2019t just about one specific struggle; it became a broader symbol for the rising of immigrants and, in broader ways, about the revival of labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ERIC BLANC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did the movement do to raise publicity and disrupt things?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHEN LERNER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A big part of doing mass work is answering the question: How do we let as many people know as possible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019d do a lot of leafleting and picketing in front of grocery stores. We did an enormous amount of human billboards \u2014 we\u2019d have people at all the big subway stations or on freeway overpasses holding these giant signs saying \u201cBoycott Lettuce and Grapes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
UFW boycotters picket along a highway in Denver, Colorado, December 18, 1972. (Denver Post via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We started giving out a leaflet called \u201cGod Called a Strike Once.\u201d It was all about the story of Exodus. I had attended seders my whole life, but it was from Catholic farmworkers that I came to see the story of Exodus as a strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019d do church meetings, we\u2019d leaflet concerts, we did everything we could to bring publicity. And it worked: we built a level of support where some rabbis declared scab grapes and lettuce to be nonkosher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were attempting to do mass work, and lots and lots of people did <\/em>get involved. We\u2019d take volunteers through a progression of steps. Beyond leafleting and picketing and having people work on raising funds, there were all sorts of next steps they could take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key analysis was: Where do people get their food and Gallo wine? They get it from grocery stores and liquor stores. And then how do you put pressure directly on these businesses to stop buying products made in companies that were refusing to recognize the union?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had our people go into stores and fill their shopping carts with food. We\u2019d put a picket line up, and then all the folks in line would say, \u201cOh, there\u2019s a picket line, I need to respect it\u201d \u2014 and they would just leave their full carts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the famous hunger strikes that Cesar Chavez led, we mirrored shorter hunger strikes in front of grocery stores. We also did big mass demonstrations at Hunts Point Market in the Bronx, where grapes and lettuce were sold wholesale. In California, people picketed the ports where longshoremen would honor the picket lines for as long as they legally could, delaying shipments of grapes and lettuce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ERIC BLANC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kind of organizing did it take to drive all this forward?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHEN LERNER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be a big mistake to underestimate how much work it takes to make a boycott succeed. To pull this off at scale, you have to do real organizing on the ground \u2014 that\u2019s the only way you can do sustained and escalating activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support for the farmworkers was intensely organized in city after city, neighborhood after neighborhood, churches and synagogues. It wasn\u2019t just a general call for a boycott. We focused on building self-sustaining committees of supporters that could drive the work locally \u2014 the pickets, the actions, all that. It was a massive operation around the country, with thousands of active supporters and hundreds of full-time volunteers working on this. We got five bucks a week to get by, and we lived in group houses, so we could spend all our time on organizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A big part of the effort was that striking farmworkers from California moved all around the country, to directly spread and lead the boycott. That was the first part of my introduction as a volunteer: I lived with a farmworker family that moved to New York City from White River Ranch in California, where they had been on strike. I lived with them and learned about their experiences as farmworkers and strikers, and why strikers faced with violence, jail, and injunctions needed the added leverage offered by the boycott.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were all trained in how to organize consumers to support the boycott. I was trained by a series of incredible organizers, including Fred Ross Sr. We built out the boycott significantly through a house-meeting approach, where we\u2019d build committees in cities and neighborhoods through house meetings in which we were all trained to tell the story of how farmworkers were treated. We\u2019d recruit people and have them invite their friends to their homes, and each house meeting would lead to more house meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were trying to appeal for solidarity not just from other unions, but also from broader liberal and progressive layers, and from religious denominations \u2014 we got a lot of support there \u2014 to make them understand that this was a moral battle that they should care about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A boycott picket outside a grocery store in Chicago, Illinois, August 1973. (US National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

ERIC BLANC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One limitation you already mentioned is that boycotts don\u2019t work in most contexts. Are there other limitations worth highlighting here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHEN LERNER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other thing that has to be said, and lots of others have made this point too, is that as the boycott eventually became the<\/em> central focus in the UFW, there ended up being much less work on organizing workers in the fields. The balance got thrown way off. So one big lesson is that if a boycott is seen as a substitute for worker activity, it\u2019s a death knell.As the boycott eventually became the central focus in the UFW, there ended up being much less work on organizing workers in the fields. The balance got thrown way off.<\/q><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of that has to do with the fact that the company will always say that a boycott is hurting the very people it\u2019s claiming to help. People would<\/em> ask us: \u201cWell, doesn\u2019t a boycott mean that farmworkers will lose their jobs?\u201d Companies will always say that a boycott will destroy the company and require mass layoffs. (They said the same thing later during the divestment movement to end apartheid in South Africa.) So you need a very strong worker core at the center of things to challenge that narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one of the reasons it was so important that farmworkers from California ended up traveling all across the country, giving the UFW campaign its moral center. Successful boycotts require a combination of workers organizing and taking action that is then supported by a broader public campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ERIC BLANC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s exciting to see that Medieval Times workers are linking up with K-12 teachers and that Cornell students recently kicked Starbucks off campus. Can you speak about the strategic importance of schools and universities in boycott campaigns?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHEN LERNER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not in any position to comment on the advisability of this tactic for particular campaigns today, but speaking more generally, schools and universities in particular are a very promising site of struggle. On the one hand, it may not be a major driver of profits for a giant corporation like Starbucks. But it\u2019s also where a whole generation of both potential workers and consumers are getting introduced to the company. And even if universities aren\u2019t the central source of profits, a movement on campus can <\/em>do a lot of damage to their brand, while training a new generation of young organizers and activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most universities, you have a large, sympathetic grouping of students capable of winning clear demands through escalating campaigns and dramatic actions. You can start with people wearing the same color shirt one day to support the effort, and over time escalate to things like occupying admin buildings, doing encampments, shutting down campus by blocking the main entrances, you name it. There\u2019s just so much fun, creative disruption that\u2019s possible on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So obviously in the universities that have a company you\u2019re targeting, or that provide their product in dining halls or campus stores, you can demand to get rid of them. But folks can also find all the universities that don\u2019t have that company, and they can demand the university pledge not to hire or buy from them until they start bargaining in good faith with the union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling for kicking a company off campus could also become a bargaining issue for campus unions. When you can get both campus students and workers working together on demanding the university dump lawbreaking companies, that\u2019s a sweet spot. You don\u2019t need to call it a boycott; you are calling on the university to throw union-busting lawbreakers off campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other thing about universities is the generally overlapping relationship between trustees and broader power structures. People on university boards are often business and political leaders. Those are great targets. A lot of times, you have universities and pension funds investing directly into companies, so another potential tactic is to demand divestment of pension plans from the corporation. You can campaign for the university to not only divest from union busters but also bring in union companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ERIC BLANC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campus boycotts are also a structure test<\/a>, right? If you can\u2019t get a boycott to catch on in universities, there\u2019s probably no world in which you can get it to catch on beyond. Conversely, if it does<\/em> catch on in universities, then you have a demonstration effect and it could spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHEN LERNER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve seen over and over again how university organizing can build and sustain momentum for broader struggles. Many key victories in the Justice for Janitors<\/a> campaign, like the monthslong University of Miami strike, were won at universities through strong student support.I\u2019ve seen over and over again how university organizing can build and sustain momentum for broader struggles.<\/q><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of that is raising publicity through dramatic actions, as well as making whatever financial impact you can have. But in universities, there is also the potential to build an army of people who are willing to get arrested to support the union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, every time a unionizing worker is fired, do we have hundreds, then thousands of volunteers we can tap to respond? Say Mary Smith gets fired for unionizing \u2014 can we get five hundred students sitting in at these four stores and blocking the doors to bring Mary Smith back? What\u2019s the escalating civil disobedience in response to the company\u2019s most egregious union busting? Building a volunteer army can be a direct way to disrupt the company, to keep the public aware of their misdeeds, and to raise the cost on them for breaking the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondary boycott laws, injunctions, and other potential litigation limit what actions unions can call for and support. So it\u2019s all about unleashing people\u2019s militancy and creativity. Movements need to get to the crisis point where things are so out of control that companies wake up every day worrying what and where they will be hit next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story becomes: more and more people are getting involved, more and more places are directly confronting what the company is doing. When you get that dynamic going, you can unleash the creativity of a mass movement, especially one led by young people. If you can set that dynamic off, folks will have a ball and they will think of more and more creative things to do to maximize disruption and publicity. And that\u2019s what you need to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHARE THIS ARTICLE<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Facebook<\/a>Twitter<\/a>Email<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONTRIBUTORS<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Lerner is a fellow at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. He is also the architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric Blanc is an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers\u2019 Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics<\/a> and Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire (1882-1917)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN LERNER (Jacobin.com) Consumer boycotts have a storied history in labor struggles like the United Farm Workers\u2019 organizing campaigns in the 1970s. But they\u2019re difficult to pull off. Veteran union organizer Stephen Lerner explains when a boycott can work for workers. Jacobin\u2018s winter issue, \u201cMunicipal Socialism,\u201d is out… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46358"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46359,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46358\/revisions\/46359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}