OPINIONS Consumer boycotts affect company employees, not employers

I am an avid believer that if you believe in something, you should stand up for it. However, I’m not sure I can put that same ideology towards consumer boycotts. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that boycotting the use of a product is sometimes necessary.

It can be useful when you want to make the company know that what they are doing is wrong, that way they can change it.

For example, boycotting the use of certain shampoo products when they test them on animals is a great way to voice your opinion.

But, if you’re tweeting about not going to Starbucks anymore while using their wifi, knowing you can’t resist their Frappuccinos for too long, it may not be very useful to boycott.

Yes, boycotts may make sales go down for some time, but people will forget about it and the news cycle will move on to something else.

The thing that I struggled with, however, was if I’m really opposed to a product, I have to boycott it right? I’m starting to think that a consumer boycott is not the way to go.

Maybe I should just advocate for what I want the company to change, instead of torturing myself by going without the McDonald’s breakfast I want. I say this because I don’t think that consumer boycotts are affecting the people at the top as much as they are the people who work for them.

If someone is attacking a brand, I think that has more power than resisting to buy a product. It would take a large number of people to stop buying this product in order for there to be a large enough consequence to the people at the top.

I feel that if sales go down, the CEOs will simply give the axe to employees in order to compensate so that the people in power can still have large financial profits.

This is something I consider when I want to boycott Hardee’s.

The CEO of CKE restaurants

— which includes Hardee’s — Andrew Puzder, has a different set of political morals than I do. He was nominated to become the U.S. Secretary of Labor by President Donald Trump, but he withdrew after numerous complaints. I don’t want to go to a restaurant that is run by a man who, according to a New York Times article by Noam Scheiber, has a conservative agenda. While this makes me not want to go to Hardee’s, I still have to consider if me not buying a product will really matter.

I don’t think me boycotting going to this restaurant will matter, but I think effective protesting of that brand can make a difference and this is the direction people should go.

Continuing to use a product even though you disagree with the people who create it can still be difficult.

Personally, I like to use Uber and need it sometimes, but when it came to light that Uber’s CEO supported Donald Trump, it was difficult for me to use the app.

In this situation, it can be difficult to know what to do.

People whose opinions I respect say not to use Uber anymore because of the company’s decisions lately. Yet, at the end of the day, I think that it would be more useful for me to not take my anger out on a service, but to construct it to actually make change. I think that if someone is passionate enough about a cause, they should advocate for it in whatever way they see fit, not simply by doing what others are doing.

Personally, consumer boycotts can be confusing. One day we are supposed to boycott Starbucks because of the way they treat coffee farmers, and then we are supposed to love Starbucks because they are going to hire 10,000 refugees. The way to take this is to simply fight for what you personally believe in. If a company is doing something you oppose, help fight for the issue, not against the company.