African Activist Archive

The document identifies two types of boycotts - consumer boycott (such as the United Farmworkers (UFW) campaign), and boycotts by workers. The document examines the significance of such strikes and the historical tradition and then will analyze the work of the Philadelphia Coalition in the boycott in the Northeast during the past two years. Longshoremen are in an ideal position to take such actions because of the strategic nature of their job. On the West Coast, particularly, there is a tradition of stoppages in support of other workers and in solidarity with foreign people's struggles. Recent strikes have occurred in support of Irish independence, Bangladesh, the UFW, and Rhodesian liberation fighters. There also are lessons from the boycott of USSR-bound wheat. These actions demonstrate the political power of organized workers' action. In Philadelphia, we picketed 10 ships, stopping two and delaying five more. One ship that was stopped was boycotted at four ports: Norfolk, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. There has been a fierce struggle in Baltimore recently against segregated union locals (eliminated in 1973). The struggle in Rhodesia was clearly related to the struggle of black workers here, and Black union officials were obliged to support the action. The Diana Skou boycott, on Dec. 23, 1974, for the first time, was clearly taken up by longshoremen as their issue. The document mentions the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), bourgeois politicians, the labor bureaucracy, anti-racist struggle, red-baiting, Local 1291, UN decrees, liberal politicians, the international working class, leftist political groups, church groups, reductions on the quantity of cargo, class solidarity, containerization, and poor working class neighborhoods.

African Activist Archive

Proposal for presentation on Boycotts

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