Why Is Boycotting Wrong

Elaine Chen
Business Ethics Midterm paper
3/10/2014
Boycotting A successful business does not live in isolation. Instead, it merges itself into the community itself and causes the community to either succeed or fail. It has a social responsibility to not only the community it is based in, but also anyone who is directly or indirectly by the company’s actions. However, in business, there are laws that might contradict what is believed to be morally correct, which can lead to conflicts. What can a company do if it is targeted by boycotting simply because the company’s country of origin? In the article, “Battling Boycotts”, it mentions two major companies that have been subjected with boycotting, McDonald’s and Procter &Gamble
Co. Both companies have high visibility and experience high intensity boycotting. McDonald’s is a brand that associates with the American way of life and when U.S supported Israel angered the Arab countries, anti-U. S boycotts started in Egypt and spread to other Arab countries. Procter & Gamble Co. created a laundry soup, Ariel and even though it was an American product, customers assumed it had an alleged Israeli connection with the name being similar to Ariel Sharon, the Israel’s prime minister and the logo resembling the six-pointed star of the Israeli flag. Companies are targeted through boycotting because people want to punish not the company, but because conflict between the company’s country of origin and the company is based in even if it is locally owned. Boycotting has been a problem to many companies and there are laws created to prevent it from happening, but some companies such as McDonald’s still meet problems daily that prevent them from doing their jobs. “Battling Boycotts” is an article written that helps give light to boycotting. It tells the companies to “remain sensitive to the changes in local sentiment that might alter its visibility or increase the threat of an aggressive boycott”
In a business law perspective, as consumers, boycotting is perfectly legal and is an instrument of action to protest against an organization because it is purely a voluntary thing and a legitimate way in showing free speech.
Boycotting are attempts to persuade other people to have nothing do with some particular company either in agreeing not to purchase the firm’s products or to socially discriminate the company. As individuals, boycotting is okay and a device that is used by people who wish to take action against those who engage in activities that people believe to be immoral. Blacklisting is also a form of boycotting and is by law, legal to do. However, secondary boycotts are outlawed under our current labor laws and are unfair to the business. Throughout history, laws were created to help prevent secondary boycotting from occur. It would be unfair to the business and obstruct the business from selling their product. One of the laws created to help regulate it was Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1931. The law was passed to make it legal for employers to fire union organizers among their employees. It was to help regulate union activity from occurring in the first place. Without unions, it would be harder for the people to come together to prevent people from buying from a certain
company. Other anti-boycott regulations were created to deal with the emerging Israeli and Arab conflict.
When Arab started boycotting trade with Israel and trade with companies that traded with Israel, U.S made laws to prevent U.S companies from following and it also prohibits refusing to employ U.S citizens because of their nationality, race or religion. To enforce that it won’t happen again, two similar laws were created to help prevent secondary boycotting like the one Arabian countries did to Iranian companies. The two laws were Federal Taft-Hartley Act and the Landrum-Griffin Act. The Taft-Hartley Act targeted unions and prohibited them from any activity that might harm other employees and employers. It prevented unions from taking direct actions against suppliers and customers of any company. The second law was Landrum-Griffin Act. This law also prevented secondary boycotts by enhancing the Taft-Hartley Act. It required unions to publically disclose their financial records. These laws created were to prevent people from boycotting companies based on conflicts from other countries and at the same time also contradict the rights of customers to fight for what they believed in just to allow companies to create profit. In an ethical perspective, as consumers, if something is produce or sold in an unethical way, a type of boycotting is initiated and attempt to persuade friends and family to not buy the product you deemed to be unethical. Boycotting is a deontological
approach to the problem. Most people boycott because they believe the product that they are selling goes against their beliefs and values. They believe that it is in their rights to be able to influence other people into understanding why they would boycott against a company.
Throughout history, boycotting means to fight for what you believe in. The bus boycott and the Boston tea party are all fights that were fighting for civil rights. By boycotting, it allows groups or individuals to create pressure on companies that go against beliefs and values if the government is unwilling or inactive. It is a chance to express freedom of speech, but if the government creates laws to block this ability to express, it eliminates the rights of the individual involved, the right to say and do what they believe is right. Another ethical issue involving boycotting is that it prevents consumers with different views from purchasing a boycotted product and creates obstacles in the way, which affects people indirectly and the company involve who might be selling other products. Work Cited
Alshebil, Saleh, Abdul A. Rasheed, and Hussam Al-Shammari. "Battling
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