Effective Protest Doesn’t Require a Majority

The opponents of “Big Green,” Proposition 128, should not view the measure’s defeat at the polls as a rejection of the need for curbs on pesticide use and other reforms. Voter frustration with incumbent politicians took its toll on the all of the initiatives; only a handful of the 28 ballot measures were approved. But the Nov. 6 returns did include another important lesson for reformers: Electoral politics isn’t the only medium of change.

Direct confrontation and grass-roots appeals--principal tactics of the environmental and other popular movements in the 1960s and ‘70s--are still viable alternatives. Special interests can marshal tens of millions of dollars to kill initiatives. But their money and clout are impotent in the face of such simple challenges as boycotts.

Our adversaries often mistakenly apply the rules of election campaigns to boycotts. Not long ago, the head of the California Table Grape Commission, Bruce Obbink, announced that his group was halting a multi-million dollar advertising campaign to counter our current California grape boycott because polls showed a majority of consumers weren’t supporting it.

But boycotts don’t need 50% plus one to win. A boycott that gets 5% of consumers to cooperate is doing very well; reach 10% and it can be telling.

An update on the renewed grape boycott, begun in 1984, shows what can be done. Our base of support is among Latinos, blacks and other minorities, plus allies in labor and the church. But it is also an entire generation of Americans who matured politically and socially in the ‘60s and ‘70s. For them, boycotting grapes and other products became a social habit.

Government statistics chart the boycott’s progress. Figures in State-Federal Market News show that from May to August, 1990, “grape unloads”--grapes delivered for sale--dropped substantially in 12 out of 15 cities surveyed, compared to the same period in 1989. Terminal market grape shipments to New York City were down by 74%, or 401,000 fewer 23-pound lugs of grapes. Los Angeles declined by 37% and San Francisco by 36%.

Market data also showed grapes selling at a loss. Last summer, Flame seedless grapes were selling for $9 to $10 for a lug. Thompson seedless grapes were selling for $9. Estimated production costs for a lug of grapes was more than $10.

What accounts for the downturn? There is only one explanation: the boycott.

Boycott opponents commonly make another key miscalculation. It’s been six years since the renewed grape boycott began again and it still hasn’t been “won,” growers argue. When we win isn’t important. The rich have money--but the poor have time. We don’t have to win this year or next year or even the year after that. We will just keep plugging away, day after day, until the boycott takes its toll. We will never quit.

In political campaigns, you race against time to get your message out--and you are always dramatically outspent. With boycotts, time becomes your ally. In the end, it can be a more powerful force than all the money that special interests can muster.