Boycotts encourage change by threatening industry and corporate profits. They have seen repeated successes and have played an important role in ethical consumption since the movement to boycott South African products during the Apartheid in the 1980s.
An Example: Taco Bell
For years, workers in Florida’s tomato fields have endured poverty wages and terrible working conditions. In 1993, a small, community-based organization called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) formed to demand an end to these unfair labour practices. By 2005, they had won a boycott campaign against Taco Bell, one of the largest fast-food corporations in the world, raising wages by almost 75 percent and setting an inspiring precedent for farm worker organizing.