NOBLE GESTURES AND EFFECTIVE BOYCOTTS:

WAL-MART, McDONALDS AND THE STRUGGLES AHEAD:

The above is the title of an interesting article that Molly has recently read over at the Anarkismo site. Randy Lowens, the author compares the anti-Wal-Mart campaigns with the more successful recent organizing of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). Some of the points that he makes are very obviously true; that campaigns against entities such as Wal-Mart require national (or international ?-Molly) coordination rather than ad-hoc citizens' groups responding to an announcement of a new store; that such campaigns are best done by first organizing workers within the workplace and then going to the community for support; that goals have to be specific and winnable,etc.. All told a very good critique, but Molly has a few quibbles. Given the track record of efforts to organize workers in Wal-Mart, for reasons that the author makes very clear, it is highly unlikely that the condition of workplace organization first will be met very often. Second, the nature of much opposition to Wal-Mart, the "not in my neighbourhood" syndrome means that opposition to the chain will inevitably be both spontaneous and local. It also means that many of those in coalitions against Wal-Mart will have only one goal-stopping store construction- and that other goals, much more winnable, will be quite secondary in their minds. There are other difficulties as well. Still, the article was very interesting and well worth the read. To peruse it go to http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id5793