African Activist Archive

Press release and memorandum announcing that ten retail companies, with annual sales of $122.8 billion, have agreed "to refuse to buy products made in whole or in part in South Africa." Five of the firms-Woolworth's, Sears and Roebuck, Sproutz-Reitz, K-Mart, and Carter, Hawley, Hale (Nieman Marcus, Wanamaker's, etc.)-also issued written condemnations of apartheid. The other seven firms-Macy's, Dayton-Hudson Corp., J.C. Penney, Safeway, Thrifty Drug, Montgomery Ward, and Nordstrom-mildly criticized apartheid in telephone statements. The only contacted firm that, so far, has refused to participate in the boycott is Lucky Stores. Dayton-Hudson's approval of Mervyn's participation and Macy's approval of Macy's (California) participation have been taken as implying participation by all other retail chains owned by the parent corporation. Montgomery Ward, which is owned by Mobil Corp., obtained Mobil's permission before agreeing to the boycott. The Committee for International Support of Trade Union Rights (CISTUR) has not found a foolproof method of determining the South African origin of products or components. They are assuming that the good faith of the participating firms will limit the need for extensive monitoring; they will ask firms to check the origins of particularly suspicious products that have not been previously identified as South African. Aubrey Grossman of CISTUR believes the California AFL-CIO is likely to take over this boycott campaign. The United Food and Commercial Workers' Union (the largest in the CA AFL-CIO) was heavily involved in the work to date. The memorandum includes a letter to Lane Kirkland from Charles Lamb, chairman of CISTUR. The memorandum mentions sanctions, Reagan's executive order, Tree Top apple juice, the California Labor Federation, and the British TUC (Trades Union Congress). [Notes: The memorandum is presumably from Doug Tilton.]

African Activist Archive

RE: Retail Stores' South African Product Boycott

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