TACTIC: if your trade justice activism encourages people to stop buying goods made by a particular company or in a particular part of the world, companies and governments could change their ways. But it could do this by accident, and the workers you care about could suffer.
“Fazer ‘Blue’ Chocolate Cocoa School Campaign“ A corporate charity fundraising campaign by Fazer. Campaign advert in Helsingin Sanomat above.
Finland’s favourite chocolate company Fazer takes out a full front page ad in a leading daily newspaper. They promise to give 5 cents from every bar of Fazer Blue to a school building project in the Ivory Coast. This is where the company’s cocoa beans are grown by child slaves. Do these children need a school or something more from Fazer?
Page reference: Eeva Kemppainen (2024) Fazer ‘Blue’ Chocolate Cocoa School Campaign. followthethings.com/fazer-blue-chocolate-cocoa-school-campaign.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)
“The Fruits Of Our Labour: An Avocado’s Story“ A dissertation by Freddie Abrahams, submitted as part of their BA Geography degree at the University of Birmingham, UK. Sample pages from Introduction, Methodology & Findings in slideshow above. Click them to read the dissertaion.
Undergraduate student Freddie Abrahams is shocked to discover that the Carmel-branded, ‘Produce of Israel’ avocados he eats may be grown on illegally seized Palestinian land. There’s a campaign in the UK to boycott these fruits. So he contacts Agrexco, the Israeli company that supplies them, and asks if it’s possible to find out for himself. He travels to Israel and ends up on kibbutz farms. They’re not on Palestinian land. And they’re not farmed by Palestinian people. The people he meets are migrant workers from Ethiopia, Thailand and other countries. He’s baffled. The boycott protestors are so angry. They say that all Israeli avocados should be boycotted. But the Agrexco managers he’s met have helped him so much with his research. They have been so open. He hasn’t seen any avocados being grown on Palestinian land. But Agrexco wouldn’t help him to see that, would they? His research does throw some doubt on facts of the boycott. So what’s his dissertation about? Following acovados? And/or the politics of knowledge in following avocados. What research are thing-followers allowed to do? What access can they gain to what spaces? Who gives permission? Who shapes what they learn to see? Freddie’s research was unusually easy to do.
Dissertation reference: Freddie Abrahams (2007) The Fruits Of Our Labour: An Avocado’s Story. BA Geography Dissertation: University of Birmingham, UK (followthethings.com/the-fruits-of-our-labour-an-avocados-story.shtml last accessed <insert date here>)
Page reference: Freddie Abrahams (2011) The Fruits Of Our Labour: An Avocado’s Story. followthethings.com/the-fruits-of-our-labour-an-avocados-story.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)
“Big Boys Gone Bananas!*“ A documentary film directed by Fredrik Gertten for WG Film AG, Sweden Free trailer and on-demand stream embedded above. Search online for other streaming options here. The second of two films on this topic. The first is “Bananas!*”. See our page on this here. See the films’ website here.
Swedish documentary filmmaker Fredrik Gertten and his small film company team are looking forward to the premiere of their courtroom documentary Bananas!* at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It follows a class action case in the California courts where a group of Nicaraguan Banana farm workers hold the Dole corporation accountable for their sexual impotence by making them use an agrochemical that had been banned because it caused it. Their case is put together by a California-based attorney, and the documentary includes grainy in-court testimony not only by the farmers but also by the Dole bosses who made the decision to continue using that agrochemical. The film documents a success story, more or less, with significant financial compensation being awarded to the workers. This is a test case. The first of its kind. So more cases will follow. More costs for Dole. More embarrassment. So Dole fights back, mounting a sophisticated public relations campaign to discredit the case (charging its lawyer with fraud) and the film (claiming it’s uncritically promoting this lawyer’s fraud). This campaign starts before the film has been screened. By people who have not seen it. News articles appear reporting that the film is a fraud. The festival is forced to withdraw it from competition, to show it at a remote theatre, and the festival director has to read out a disclaimer before it’s shown there. Then negative reviews start to appear as soon as it’s seen. Can this seemingly coordinated effort to silence corporate critique succeed? What would you do as a filmmaker if this happened to you? Gertten does what he knows best. He turns his camera on and makes a film about Dole’s attempts to discredit his film. He steps out from behind the camera to become its central character. Unbelievable things are happening to him, to the people he works with, and to the film they made together. But his film company had taken out an insurance policy that allowed them to pay for expensive legal help to fight back. They cleverly coordinate an counter-information and crowndfunding campaign. And a surprising international collection of allies come to their aid. Dole’s efforts to censor Bananas!* are a complete failure and, more than anything, make it and this Big Boys sequel a 100% must see double-bill for anyone interested in trade justice actvism. Read below to see how this story unfolds. It’s a genuine ‘David vs. Goliath’ story. You could never make this up! There’s so much to learn from this. Buckle up.
Page reference: Camilla Muirhead, Katie Lambert, Katie Joyce, Will Sensecall, Izzie Snowden, Matt Creagh & Harry Cousens (2020) Big Boys Gone Bananas!*. followthethings.com/big-boys-gone-bananas.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)
“Ahava Stolen Beauty“ An activist campaign organised by CODEPINK Women For Peace. 12 video YouTube playlist compiled by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights embedded above shows protests taking place at multiple sites selling Ahava products in Canada, USA, The Netherlands, Israel & France. Click here for more footage of campaign protests and explainer videos. Click here for Code Pink’s ‘Ahava Stolen Beauty’ campaign website.
After the aftermath of Israel’s invasion of Gaza in 2008-9, members of the American women-led grassroots peace and human rights organisation CODEPINK visit a factory on the bank of the Dead Sea which makes cosmetic products from its salts and minerals on occupied Palestinian land. According to the Geneva Convention, occupying forces cannot take or profit from the natural resources of an occupied territory. Sold in department stores, spas and Ahava stores around the world, Ahava products are stamped as ‘Made in Israel’. Critics say that the company’s profits support the illegal settlement where the factory is based. So CODEPINK encourage women are concerned about beauty and disgusted by the occupation to use their consumer power to boycott Ahava products, and to use their citizen power to protest at their sites of sale (in bikinis and bathrobes to attract attention). When the US arm of Ahava later launches an #ahavareborn rebrand campaign on twitter and asks for suggestions, critics pile in with sarcastic slogans about aspects of the occupation that Ahava products can help to conceal or wash away. As the boycott gathers momentum, supporters of Israel criticise it – and the wider Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement that it became part of – as antisemitic, and pro-Israel consumers start counter-campaigns, buycotts, encouraging people to buy as many Ahava products as they can from targeted stores. But, despite this, Ahava stores shut, retailers refuse to stock Ahava goods, governments pass legislation forbidding ‘Made in Israel’ to be printed on goods produced in occupied Palestinian territories and, eventually, Ahava moves its factory to an unoccupied site. To add to this mix, laws forbidding the boycotting of ‘Made in Israel’ goods are passed around the world. This is an epic, controversial example of effective trade justice activism. The message was simple: there was no beauty in occupation. The repercussions of this actvism are with us today
NB this page is a taster. There’s much more to add after out new site is launched. Please check back.
Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) Ahava Stolen Beauty (taster). followthethings.com/ahava-stolen-beauty.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)
“No Pride In Primark“ Popular activist campaign against Primark’s ‘Pride’ clothing & accessories made in anti-LGBTQ+ countries. To see what sparked this, watch Primark’s promotional video above.
UK LGBTQ+ rights charity Stonewall collaborates with high street fashion retailer Primark on its 2018 ‘Pride’ range of clothing and accessories. They will be sold throughout Europe and North America and 20% of their profits will go to Stonewall. But none of the proceeds will go to the organisers of Pride celebrations, some of whom are struggling for money. And many of the countries in which this ‘Pride’ merch is being made – like Turkey, Myanmar & China – ban LGBTQ+ events and NGOs and imprison people for homosexuality. So what should Primark & Stonewall do? Where should people shopping for Pride merch go? And what’s it like to be an LGBTQ+ worker in Turkey, Myanmar or China making t-shirts and other merch that ‘celebrates what you are not allowed to be’? These are the questions asked by social media critics and the journalists who pick up their criticisms. It’s not a huge orchestrated campaign. No NGO or other organisation orchestrates it. Nevertheless, it becomes a notorious case of a high street brand ‘pink-washing’ (a form of ‘woke-washing’) their supply chain operations. In the wake of these criticisms, Primark continues to support LGBTQ+ organisations in many countries, but has it addressed the crackdowns on LGBTQ people in those countries where its rainbow merch is made? Should it withdraw its orders from these countries? Or keep working there, supporting – via Stonewall and other organisations – the LGBTQ+ organisations and workers who need it? Does it do so? And how can it convince the media, activists and consumers that it’s doing so? LGBTQ+ people represent a big market for clothing sales.
Page reference: Ian Cook et al (2024) No Pride In Primark (taster). followthethings.com/no-pride-in-primark.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)
“Dream Crazy“ An advertising campaign for Nike by the Wieden+Kennedy agency. Video ad embedded ABOVE. Full campaign materials here.
It’s the 30th anniversary of Nike’s ‘Just Do it’ campaign. So the advertising agency hired by the brand most associated with sweatshops hires an African American football player called Colin Kaepernick to front it. He’s the quarterback who became famous in 2016 for taking the knee during the national anthem before games because, he said, ‘I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color’. After George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in 2020, taking the knee became associated with support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Condemned as unpatriotic by many, including President Trump, Nike was courting controversy by making Kaepernick the figurehead of its campaign. But he could show that by ‘dreaming crazy’, marginalised people like himself could excel. And Nike could be part of this. But strange things happened. People who did’t like Kaepernick and the Black Lives Matter movement started burning their Nike gear, criticising its production overseas by sweatshop workers and boycotting the brand. Others normally critical of Nike said they’d buy more from them because of their support for BLM. Others asked why the lives of Nike’s Black consumers and consumers of color mattered more than the lives of their Black producers and producers of color. What did Kaepernick know and think about these marginalised people and their dreams before he took Nike’s money? This kind of advertising – where, for example, civil rights are used to mask labour rights – is called woke-washing. Nike seems to be running this campaign to stir controversy, by launching it on Labor Day bang into the US’s toxic ‘culture war’ around BLM. This campaign itself isn’t trade justice activism. But the responses to it are. The debates that it can take you into are around ‘systemic racism’ and ‘racial capitalism’. Why is it that the workers trade justice activists are concerned about tend to live in the Global South and be people of colour while the consumers they address tend to live on the Global North and seem by default to be white? How did that happen? Can trade justice / follow the thing activism be decolonised? Who would do this work? What commodities would they trace from where to where? What would they make for what kinds of audiences to act upon? And you might be wondering if this controversial campaign does Nike any harm. No. Its impact was much more about the uncomfortable, progressive, ‘mind-f$@k’ conversations that it sparked. Thank you Colin…
Page reference: Louise Mason, Maddy Shackley, Izzie Jeffrey, Megan Holden, Sophia Stainer, Emily Taylor, Andrew Gamble & Monty Leaman (2018) Dream Crazy. followthethings.com/dream-crazy.shtml (last accessed <add date here>)
