A thing many folks do not understand when they refer to boycotts as "not crossing the picket line". - ThreadSky

ebthen.bsky.social • 69 days ago

A thing many folks do not understand when they refer to boycotts as "not crossing the picket line".

Reposted from KT

No, crossing a picket line specifically refers to workers. Not patronizing a business is a boycott, which a union may or may not call for as part of industrial action.

It can sometimes be better for an action if customer levels stay they same as this can apply more pressure to management

Comments

ebthen.bsky.social•69 days ago

I have gone back and forth on trying to educate folks about this in more recent years because actual Disability Justice is often (wrongly) framed as in opposition to labor justice and I don't necessarily know if folks will believe me.

ebthen.bsky.social•69 days ago

I think I get why people mistakenly refer to boycotts as "not crossing the picket line", because if you were to patronize a brick-and-mortar retail location with a strike action outside, you would literally have to cross the picket line to get inside.

But scabs are the ones who cross picket lines.

ebthen.bsky.social•69 days ago

If you want to know if the workers organizing a strike action are also calling for a boycott, their official websites or similar outlets usually have that information.

ebthen.bsky.social•69 days ago

One reason a boycott might not be called for is that if customer demand stays high but there aren't enough workers to fulfill the demand, it can impress on employers the importance of resolving the situation with speed and that the easiest and fastest way of doing that is to meet workers' demands.

ebthen.bsky.social•69 days ago

This is why scabs—the workers crossing the picket line—are so reviled. Scabs take the pressure off the employers by undermining the collective action of workers withholding labor.

ebthen.bsky.social•69 days ago

Anyway this is the context for the above thread.

pensandlighters.bsky.social•69 days ago

This is an enormous relief, I had to schedule a release of a book in advance from Kindle Direct and it happened yesterday, right when the strike flared up.

dysamoria.com•69 days ago

Thank you for sharing this. I hadn’t before considered that point at the end of that post.

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